SOUTHWEST MUSEUM 
PAPERS 


Number One 


TO SHOW THE STORY OF MAN 


Archaeological Reconnaissance 
in Sonora: by Monroe Amsden 


1927, by Harold Ss Glades 
Archeology. a 


SOUTHWEST MUSEUM 
PAPERS 


Number One 


Archaeological Reconnaissance in Sonora: 
by Monroe Amsden, Director of Field Work 


Published by the 
SOUTHWEST MUSEUM 
Highland Park, Los Angeles, California 


April, 1928 


a 


PREFACE 


The reconnaissance described in the following report was begun 
with no very definite object in view, that is, I merely set out to see 
what archeological remains were to be found in northeastern Sonora, 
and to gather, if possible, during the short time at my disposal, 
sufficient knowledge of the country and of the ruins to formulate 
plans for more thorough exploration in the future. It was my in- 
tention in the beginning, to work intensively as I went along, in- 
vestigating every site within a few hours’ riding distance along either 
side of the route I had tentatively planned; but it soon became ap- 
parent, once we started, that by so doing very little ground would be 
covered, and the result would be less useful, for present needs, than 
the information to be gained from the investigating of sites more 
widespread, though they might not be as many in number. There- 
fore, I visited only those sites that I could examine in passing without 
greatly interrupting our progress, thus making the reconnaissance 
extensive rather than intensive. 

Sonora is one of the least known units of the archzological South- 
west. Difficulty of access, rumors of lawlessness and (to a certain 
extent) political barriers have, until recently, conspired to make it 
undesirable as a field for scientific investigation. No excavation, so 
far as I know, has ever been undertaken in Sonora, and only two 
publications, viz.: Bandelier’s Final Report (1890) and Lumbholtz’s 
Unknown Mexico (1902) have appeared in which its ruins are 
described.* The greater part of the state is still terra incoguita. 

The report which follows contains two parts. In the first, I have 
endeavored to give an uncolored account of what we did, what we 
saw, what we thought during the trip. For this, I have chosen my 
diary as the most suitable mode of presentation, having in mind the 
armchair-archeologist who may be curious to know what life in 
the field is like. The second part consists of a brief technical descrip- 
tion of the ruins I found, and, as a scientific treatise, begs to rest 
upon its merits. 

I wish here to express appreciation of the courteous treatment 
accorded me by Mr. John E. Jones, American Vice Consul at Agua 
Prieta; Sres. A. Gabilondo and J. E. Tena, in charge.of Mexican 
Immigration and Customs at Agua Prieta; Sr. H. Gabilondo of 
Colonia Oaxaca; Messrs. D. C. Kinne and E. G. Specht, in charge 
of American Immigration and Customs at Douglas; without whose 
help preparations for the trip would have been a matter of very great 
difficulty. M.A. 


Los Angeles, December, 1927. 


*BANDELIER, A. F.—-Final report of Investigations among the Indians 
of the Southwestern United States, carried on mainly in the years from 1880 
to 1885; Cambridge University Press, 1892 (In Papers of the Archeological 
Institute of America, American Series, volume IV). 

LUMHOLTZ, CARL—Unknown Mexico; Charles Scribner’s Sons, New 
York, 1902. 


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Map by Grayson, Les Angeles 


PART I 
Tei Le 
November 8, 1927. 


Mounted on three fairly sorry saddle-horses, driving four sore- 
backed pack-mules, one of which is twenty-eight years old (and looks 
it), we left the ranch at Colonia Oaxaca and headed south, up the 
valley of the Rio de Bavispe. In the lead, rode Morquecho, our 
guide, looking like Don Quixote might have looked, had that illustri- 
ous gentleman been a poor Mexican peon. Rosinante, “lean, bony, 
and unsound,” must have been just such an animal as Morquecho’s 
fiddle-headed black mare. 

Instead of dressing in the picturesque costume of a gentleman ad- 
venturer of Quixote’s day, Morquecho wears faded blue denim, so 
tattered and patched that superficially he resembles a moulting hen, 
and a pair of officer’s leather puttees, at least a generation old, be- 
neath which are a pair of hybrid moccasin-shoes of his own manu- 
facture. Instead of carrying a lance, Morquecho carries a rusty old 
army rifle, tied longitudinally to his weather-beaten saddle with a 
saddle-string that he borrowed from me, the rifle being as useless as 
a lance, since he has no ammunition for it. Behind Morquecho, the 
mules shuffled along single file through the dust of the road, the old 
one walking with all the rhythmic solemnity of a grandfather’s clock, 
looking neither to the right nor to the left, the mean one watching 
out of the corner of her eye for a chance to kick the two younger 
members of the mulada, who (or which) regarded duty as incidental 
to pleasure, and constantly snatched mouthfuls of grass from the 
roadside. My young brother George and I brought up the rear. 

We forded the river not far above the ranch. I decided it was 
time to go to work, and climbed to the rim of a mesita to look for 
sites; but the mesquite brush, armed as it was with strong sharp 
thorns, became so impenetrable that I had to give it up as a bad job. 
When I overtook the mules, George hinted that, since it was noon, 
we might stop for lunch. I knew how he felt, and I sympathized 
with him; but I had to let him know that there will be no lunches 
on this trip. Stopping to unpack, cook, eat and pack again consumes 
too much time, and two meals a day are enough for any one—pro- 
vided they be hearty ones. 

Soon we left the valley to follow up a narrow winding little cafion, 
which came in from the left. Through the loose gravel in the bed 
of the wash, the mules plodded patiently, their shod hoofs making 
a pleasant crunching sound. Low cliffs of sandstone conglomerate 


5 


6 SouTHWEST MuSEUM PAPERS 


reflected the heat of the sun, and raised the temperature of the still 
air to the roasting point. Near its head, we left the canon, and 
climbed a rocky trail up a steep hill, crossed the hill, and continued 
climbing up and going down until we re-entered the Bavispe valley 
where the river makes a large horseshoe bend. In one of the rock- 
walled draws we followed, I saw patches of pictographs of the types 
common in the Southwest. Vaqueros have followed the example of 
the aboriginal artists by pecking or scratching their initials and brands 
in conspicuous places. From the fact that the cafon forms a natural, 
easily accessible pass through the hills, I infer that it constituted an 
artery of traffic in ancient times as it does today, and that the numer- 
ous carvings represent the labor of artistically inclined passersby. 1 
found no traces of occupation anywhere in the vicinity. 


Rio de Bavispe near Colonia Oaxaca 


Having crossed twice the curving river, we made camp on its 
bank, and Morquecho drove the stock to a grassy mesa to graze dur- 
ing the night. George and I busied ourselves in searching through 
the packs for this and for that, and having finally assembled the 
necessary ingredients, cooked our supper. The clear light of the 
setting sun, striking the high cliffs to the north of us, with their 
creamy brown face eroded by wind and rain to a semblance of gigantic 
sculptured columns, threw them into vivid relief against a somber 
background of mountains. With the deepening of the twilight, our 
fire died to smoking coals, so that we alternately gasped and ate as 
the breeze shifted. Morquecho, between gasps and bites, revealed 
his remarkable conversational talents. After satisfying his appetite 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA fi 


(he is also a remarkable eater), he opened up in earnest, and talked, 
principally of buried treasure and lost mines, touching upon such 
topics as his travels, bandits, ghosts, revolutions, concluding with 
a thrilling account of how he, Morquecho, alone and unaided, licked 
a sizeable band of Seris so badly that they sneaked away in the dark. 
The fact that the rifle he used had no sights makes the deed positively — 
heroic. If only Baron Munchausen could have been present to tell 
another ! 


Wednesday, November 9. 


When I crawled out of my bed this morning to build the fire, 
it was cold. Fog hung in the valley, and dew made everything I 
touched feel cold and clammy. George, making a supreme effort, 
rolled out of his saddle-blankets, stiff in his joints; but Morquecho 
remained huddled underneath his faded khaki “tarp” until the fire 
was burning well, then coughed and groaned most miserably as he 
sat up to roll a cigarette. He says he is getting old. 

Packing was a hard task. The panniers all had to be rebalanced 
and the straps readjusted; the ropes were stiff, the mules restive. 
George and I did the packing, while Morequecho swore authorita- 
tively at the mules to make them behave. Then came the excru- 
ciating business of easing ourselves into our saddles, and we were off. 

The trail led over a ridge and dropped again into the valley at 
Las Moras, a scattered pueblito of adobe houses, each with its walls 
festooned with long strings of brilliant red chilis. A spotted pig, 
tied to a mesquite tree, eyed us belligerently as we rode by; a vaquero 
galloped toward us on a buckskin pony for a visit with Morquecho. 
Near the river, men were cutting house beams in the groves of cotton- 
woods. No one seemed to be in any great hurry. We followed the 
wagon road between fields of corn past another pueblo, where men 
looked with admiration at our new pack outfit, and women looked 
without admiration at us. Beyond, two bearded old men, standing 
knee-deep in the river, paused in their work to return our “Buenos 
Dias’ with dignified Mexican courtesy. A deer swam toward us 
from the opposite bank. I was quite excited by this novel sight— 
until I saw a red collar around its neck. It was a pet. 

At the village of Realitos, I found a site of the “slab” type 
(No. 28 on map). There, we turned to the right to go up and 
around the point of the Sierra del Tigre to investigate some caves 
Morquecho said he had seen. On the top of a high cordén com- 
manding a broad view of the valley and sierras beyond, I stopped 
for a picture. The town of Bavispe could be seen up the valley a 
few miles. From the hilltops, we descended a precipitous trail into 
a narrow deep cafion lined with jagged cliffs. In the bottom, cotton- 
woods and large mesquites and oaks grew beside a diminutive stream. 
Ahead, an isolated “island” of massive salmon-colored rocks flamed 


8 SouUTHWEST MuSEUM PAPERS 


in the sunlight, incredibly brilliant. Morquecho led the way, as 
usual, up the cafion, over divides and across more cafions. The trail 
was in places nearly impassable, and was everywhere extremely rough 
and rocky. The steep hillsides were smooth and innocent in appear- 
ance, but underneath the high grass covering them were broken 
granite-like rocks, cruelly sharp, fallen from low cliffs above, equally 
broken and equally sharp. Deep cafions alternated with rock-bound 
ridges in a series seemingly without end. : 

My new saddle, stiffer than a starched shirt, was treating me 
so ungratefully that I was almost ready to cry. Fortunately, we 
came to a place where further passage was impossible. “Here,” I 
told Morquecho, “we sleep.” 

After a supper of beans, canned hominy, biscuits and coffee, 
Morquecho settled himself beside the fire and started talking. Tale 
after tale of the horses and dogs he used to have, of the guns he 
has for which he is too poor to buy ammunition, of his mines and 
the fortunes he has almost made from them, of being sent to jail 
for others’ crimes, of hunting and of war—these and many others 
came from him in a steady stream of words. Far into the night he 
talked, until I grew sleepy and made my bed among the rocks and 
squirmed myself gratefully into it, too tired to hear more. 


November 10. 

We stayed today in the cafion, principally because of the necessity 
of spending a good deal of time climbing to Morquecho’s caves, 
partly because my saddle had bruised me in many places and needed 
adjustment. During the morning, we went to the caves, climbing 
over rocks, through thick oak brush, slipping and sliding. It was 
hard work and very uncomfortable, to me, at least, due to the in- 
adaptability of my riding boots to mountain-climbing. 

The caves are two little shelters (No. 29 on map), unworthy of 
being called caves, as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. In the 
first, I found one plain black sherd, but could see no traces of pro- 
tracted occupation; in the other there was nothing. Since there is 
no arable land in these rocky cafions and the formations of the 
mountains are too hard and broken for the occurrence of desirable 
caves, I should hardly expect to find a cave-culture; but there may 
be caves used from time to time by hunters who have left some 
signs of their brief periods of occupation. However, to explore the 
range thoroughly would take more time than I have to spare, and 
the results would probably not justify the labor of exploration. 

During the rest of the day, we occupied ourselves in camp. 


November 11. 


We are now camped near Bavispe, in a humid district border- 
ing on the river. Early this morning, we broke camp and left the 


0 eS 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 9 


sierra, getting down to the river about noon. Coming up the valley, 
we passed Mexicans driving burros laden with firewood packed in 
high arching piles over their backs. Others were returning afoot 
or horseback from town, bound for their respective ranchitos. All 
looked at us curiously ; some were pleasant in their salutations, others 
surly. 

Bavispe' is a town of about five hundred inhabitants, I should 
judge, built in the usual Mexican style, with long one-story adobe 
houses, open through to the patio, arranged around a plaza, which 
here is overgrown with weeds. The public buildings, of which there 
are a few, Bavispe being an important community, are in the same 
need of repair as are the majority of the residences. Lack of civic 
pride is apparent. Our arrival was heralded by the barking of a 
host of mangy dogs. A few of them were of that ugly, naked, 
leprous breed commonly known as “hairless dogs.” Children, play- 
ing in the streets, were startled by our coming; men loafed in the 
shade; women stopped their work to come to their doorways as our 
mules shied and danced through rocky narrow streets. All stared 
with varying degrees of astonishment at los gringos. George’s red 
hair seemed to be the major attraction. 

After supper, Morquecho rode back to town on the mean mule 
to shop. An old man came to sell us corn for the mules, which he 
sent just before bedtime. George and I sat by the fire trying, 
without success, to pry open the hooks on the lash-cinches. Morque- 
cho returned, laden with sugar and a shovel and a few little things. 
He had me count the change he received two or three times to make 
sure it was correct. 

At some late hour of the night, I was awakened by the light of 
a fire burning a few yards from my bed. Near the fire stood a 
gaunt stranger, dressed in shining khaki trousers and a new khaki 
shirt. I looked again. It was Morquecho, wearing the new clothes 
he had secretly bought in town. 


Sunday, November 13. 


Yesterday, having left Bavispe and gone on to Baceraca,* 
where more dogs barked and more people stared, we turned south- 
west at the latter place and entered a cafion, which we followed up- 


1. “That unfortunate village (Bavispe) has been completely destroyed 
since my visit, by the earthquake of May, 1887. It has a large and massive 
church, built towards the end of the last century, after the Franciscan order 
had taken charge of the missions which the Jesuits were forced to abandon. 
F Fertile lands extend in the bottom below the pueblo, but east of the 
river the mountains rise in steep slopes. I found painted pottery and traces 
of ruins adjacent to the pueblo, and at La Galerita, midway nearly between 
Bacerac and Bavispe.’’ Bandelier, pps. 527-528. 

2. Also spelled Bacerac or Baserac. Place names in northeastern 
Sonora are largely of Indian origin, having been rendered into uncertain Spanish 
by the phonetic method. Illiteracy is so general that little thought is given to 
the niceties of spelling, hence no uniform orthography has developed. C and §, 
preceding a vowel, are used indiscriminately, as are also B and V. 


10 SoUTHWEST MusEuM PAPERS 


stream a couple of miles to a trail leading out to the crest of a long 
cordon that slopes gradually upward to the same Sierra del Tigre. 
This we followed about eight miles, over a rock-strewn trail to the 
rim of a cafion. Our objective was Pueblito, an old ranch where 
(according to Morquecho) pottery is to be found in great abundance. 
The trail seemed to end abruptly at the rim, leaving us high and 
dry—very dry. The sun was setting. George and I sat on a rock 
while Morquecho searched for a trail into the cafon. Mosquitos 
buzzed around our heads. What business they had there, I don’t 
know. It had been dark for some time when Morquecho returned 
with the news that to get into the cafion was impossible. We turned 
about and climbed back to a flat spot in a saddle between two hills, 
slipping, tripping, and skinning our shins in the dark, to make a 
dry camp. Two of the mules were missing. Morquecho set out 
again to find them, swearing frightfully. Having no water for cook- 
ing, we substituted cigarettes for food, and sat by the fire engaged 
in gloomy conversation. Bedtime came, and we threw down in the 
least rocky places we could find. : 


Long before daylight, while all the stars were still shining, 1 
got up and made the fire, by which I sat smoking and staring sleepily 
into the dark toward the sound of the bell on the old black mare. 
George joined me before very long. When it was light enough to 
see, we saddled and packed, and soon after sunrise were riding back 
on the trail over which we came yesterday. Two miles back, we 
worked our way down the hill into the cafion, where we drank cool 
sweet water from a trickling stream. 

Our present camp is on a flat grassy spot underneath a small 
grove of oak trees. In the rocky arroyo below us, are pools of clear 
water; on either side of the narrow cafion, rise sheer granite cliffs. 
It is an attractive place, and ideally suited to camping. 

At noon, when we finally ate, our appetites were enormous. 
After allowing a bit of time for digestion, which George and I spent 
in picking over a mess of beans and Morquecho in groaning (he has 
a cold), we went up the cafion afoot to find Pueblito, leaving George 
in camp to keep the beans boiling. A large white-faced bull snorted 
at us. We gave him the trail and went on. The farther we went, 
the wilder and more beautiful the narrow cafion became. In places, 
we climbed carefully over smooth granite boulders and worked our 
way through narrow gorges, carved in the solid rock by erosion, 
polished by the action of the water. Pools of water cast back the 
reflection of the boulders and cliffs, and of trees, some bright with 
the colors of leaves in the autumn. Once, we climbed high up the 
hillside in order to go on. Just below Pueblito, we emerged from 
a rocky gorge into a pleasant grove of oaks, and walked along the 
trail, through grass knee-high, past a grave, surrounded by a fence of 
wooden pickets and surmounted by an inscribed cross. 


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AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 11 


In an open space at the junction of three cafions, lay Pueblito— 
a deserted house of rough-laid stones with a fallen roof of grass 
thatch, a corral and a crumbling stone oven. A gnarled oak, leaf- 
less and dead, standing near the house, completed the picture of deso- 
lation. Abandonment of the ranch had probably followed a raid 
by the Apaches, who have wrought havoc in Sonora in times past, 
and still occasionally commit new depredations. 

We looked for sherds, but in vain. I photographed Pueblito, and 
we returned to camp. Scientifically, the expedition was a failure; 
but, nevertheless, the afternoon was one of the most delightful I 
have ever spent. 


The pack train on a cord6n near Pueblito 


November 14. 


Today we stayed in camp. Morquecho had such a bad cold this 
morning that he was in no shape for traveling. He sat all day on 
a rock, with a blanket doubled over his shoulders, holding his head 
in his hands, suffering silently. I gave him aspirin and some laxa- 
tive pills, these being the only remedies for colds that we have. 
George read a copy of the Saturday Evening Post that he brought 
from Douglas, and became irritated when he found that some of the 
most important pages had been torn out. I spent the morning teach- 


12 SouTHWEST MusEUM PAPERS 


ing the mules to eat out of nosebags, and the afternoon beating the 
fenders of my saddle with a stick to soften them. 
It was a pleasant day, idly spent. 


November 15. 

Today we left the Sierra. Morquecho wanted to take the trail 
back to Baceraca in order to reach the valley, but I vetoed the idea. 
Instead, we followed down the cafion about halfway to its mouth 
and climbed out to the crest of a long grassy cordén, down which we 
rode to the river about three miles below Estancia. There, I found 
a “slab” site (No. 32 on map) and made a collection of potsherds. A 
young Mexican overtook us and stopped for a chat with Morquecho. 
He said that a hundred and fifty yards above the ranch at Pueblito 
there is a site with decorated pottery.* Morquecho swore vigor- 
ously when he heard it. 

At Estancia, where the Rio de Huachinera, a small stream, joins 
the Bavispe, there is a cluster of adobe ranch-houses, sombre and 
dirty in appearance, on the point of a mesita. A strong young woman, 
one of the hardy race of Mexican mountaineers, quite different people 
from the effeminate town-dwellers, stood in her doorway to watch 
us pass. Otherwise, the ranch seemed deserted. __ 

To the east of Estancia lies Tres Rios, in an opening of the 
sierras, at, or near, which village there is a colony of Kickapoos 
(Chicapuses, the Mexicans call them), at one time residents of Okla- 
homa; to the west, the Sierra del Tigre begins to break down into 
hills, which continue toward the south in line with the sierra, losing 
more and more of their mountainous character. South of Tres Rios, 
the Sierra de Huachinera begins: the highest (though not the long- 
est), most imposing sierra in this northern district. Along its foot, 
on this side, extends a high flat-topped mesa. Looking upstream 
toward Huachinera, the valley, which below Estancia is so broad 
and open, appears to be cut off by low rolling hills. 

Men were at work in the fields below Huachinera, threshing 
beans and winnowing them by tossing double handfuls into the air. 
The threshing-floors of packed earth looked smooth and clean; but 
I know from experience that no Mexican bean is to be regarded as 
being a bean until it has been proven that it is not a rock. Some 
threshing-floors are, no doubt, less rocky than others. Outside the 
bean-field fence, Morquecho and I held a conference concerning the 
selection of a camping-place, after which we climbed a winding hill- 
side road to the town. On the outskirts, George and I held the mules 
while Morquecho rode away in search of corn. I followed him a 
few minutes later, past long low adobe houses with wooden rejas 
over their windows, peering with interest into one patio after another. 


3. Possibly the site which Bandelier calls Los Metates, about twelve 
miles from Bacerac, to the west or southwest. It is described in some detail 
on pages 524-526 of his Final Report. 


— 


ae a ee 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 13 


One of the most charming vistas in the world, I think, is a patio seen 
through a broad arched entranceway, especially if within there are 
flowers and plants, and garish landscapes painted on the white-washed 
walls. In a dirty backyard, flaming with the ubiquitous strings of 
chilis, | found Morquecho, in the act of lifting a heavy sack of corn 
to his saddle, surrounded by Mexicans, old and young, to whom he 
was talking. One of the girls was very pretty. 

From the edge of town, we took a trail, visibly worn in the 
solid rock by years of traffic, into the valley again and unpacked 
in a disused milpa beside the river. Here, for the first time in 
Sonora, I noticed junipers growing in the ravines, which reminded 
me of the hills in New Mexico. Rounded bluffs of coarse sandstone 
and the mesa above, covered with grama grass and dotted with clumps 
of junipers, made the resemblance complete. 

Supper was finished in the dark; the breeze blew colder and 
colder—so cold that I dug a woolen undershirt out of my war-bag 
and gave it to Morquecho, who was shivering. The little mule and 
the old black mare nosed among the packs to locate the corn. I 
collected a small pile of rocks beside my bed to throw at them, should 
they become too bold during the night. 


November 16. 


From our camp in the field, we followed up the wooded Hua- 
chinera valley to a small ranch (Sipiuerachic, on the map), where 
we entered a waterless ravine that led us to the east toward Teso- 
robabi. On the narrow top of a small mesa half a mile beyond the 
ranch, I found a site (No. 33 on map) and made a sherd collection, 
then hurried to overtake the mules. Seeing a rather unkempt old 
man riding a ratty bay horse approaching me, I began to feel self- 
conscious and wished that the Mexicans didn’t travel so much. 
“Buenos dias,” I said when we met. “Good morning,’ was his 
prompt reply. This so entirely threw me off my mental balance 
that I could think of nothing to say and sat dumbly on my horse 
looking at him. He, I inferred from his questions concerning 
Colonia Morelos (a Mormon colony), was one of those Mormons 
who, when the government of the United States interfered with their 
ways of living, founded colonies in Chihuahua and Sonora, and emi- 
grated with their families. 

As we rode by the ranch of Tesorobabi, a half-witted boy stood 
with his foot on a bar of the corral fence and stared at us. Two 
vaqueros, fierce-looking Mexicans, wearing large hats pulled down 
over their eyes, were talking in the road outside a high-walled en- 
closure shut in on the fourth side by the ranch-house, a solid, hon- 
estly-built structure of stone. The ranch had something of a foreign 
air; although it was planned and built in the most approved Mexi- 
can style, and had the usual quota of wandering chickens and burros. 


14 SouTHWEST MusSEUM PAPERS 


It seemed too well-kept to be entirely Mexican. Through the ranch 
flows a small stream, coming out of a cajoncito, up which winds the 
trail to Bacadéhuachi, fed by underground springs. Toward the 
Sierra de Huachinera, the country is open, with, here and there, an 
oak tree, or a clump of oaks, thickly covered with grama grass grow- 
ing knee-high to a horse. The underlying formation is sandstone 
conglomerate, stratified in thin layers, and gashed by an intricate 
network of small cafions, in each of which, apparently, there are 
cottonwoods and a stream, or pools, of water. It is excellent country 
for cattle. 


Our trail dipped into one of the little cajones and emerged on 
the side of a long cordén which we ascended on an easy grade toward 
the divide between the Huachinera and the Bacadéhuachi valleys. 
More properly speaking, it is a series of parallel ridges that separates 
the valleys. Lava soon appeared and the trail became rocky. Strewn 
about among the rocks, were innumerable nodules of obsidian; in 
fact, one stretch of the trail for a hundred yards or more was so 
thickly covered with obsidian that the ground could scarcely be seen 
where passing mules had worn away the grass. Most of the nodules 
were not larger than a walnut; none larger than my fist. This is 
the Tahuaro, mentioned by Bandelier in his Final Report as being 
“remarkable for the profusion of nodules of obsidian contained in 
its lava” (Page 515). 

After “jumping,” as they say in Spanish, a couple of high, lava- 
covered ridges, we came to the broad valley in which Aribabi and 
Tidpari are located. The valley is about a mile and a half long and 
half that wide, completely encircled by hills. Through it meanders 
the dry bed of an arroyo. The hills are thickly covered with large 
oaks, a few of which trees still stand in the fields, their great size 
having saved them from destruction when the land was cleared for 
cultivation. Miles of rail fences divide the various farms, on a few 
of which are miserably inadequate houses of adobe and solid oak 
poles, through which the wind must whistle at a frightful rate dur- 
ing storms. But, as I have said, the Mexican mountain-folk are a 
hardy breed—frugal in their ways of living and well able to endure 
what we should call hardships. Hemmed in as they are by hills, 
almost completely untouched by the progressive influence of civiliza- 
tion, the inhabitants of the valley have become self-dependent, rely- 
ing upon their fields of corn and beans, and their herds of cattle 
for their existence. An underground seepage of water furnishes them 
with never-failing protection against lean crops ; thickly-growing grass 
and brush in the hills provide abundant food and adequate shelter 
for their stock—so they must be happy. Every one, at least, that 
I saw,—from the gnome-like bearded old men, down to the smallest 
child, toddling about clad in nothing more than an abbreviated 
shirt,—seemed cheerful and contented. 


Se. . 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 15 


Next to the curious little old men we passed, the oddest thing 
in the valley was the type of house-construction that has been de- 
veloped at Tidpari. The house itself is of rough masonry, with a 
door (doorway would be more correct) and a hole in the wall 
through which smoke from the cooking fire escapes. The roof is of 
earth, packed hard upon layers of horizontal poles and sticks. From 
the top of the wall on the windward side, a steeply-pitched lean-to 
of peeled poles thatched with grass rises to a point perpendicular 
to the opposite wall, where it is supported by two vertical poles. 
Seen squarely from the windward side, the house appears complete 
and the high thatched roof makes it imposing; viewed from any 
other angle, the effect is queer, to say the least, as though a colossal 
architectural error had been committed. A notched post serves as 
a ladder to reach the loft thus made, which provides a storage-place 
for surplus corn and frijoles. 

Morquecho stopped at one of these to inquire about a camping- 
place. A man pointed toward a ravine where, he said, there was 
water. A trail led from the house up the ravine and into the oak- 
clad hills. Morquecho thanked the man in his politest manner 
(“Muchisisimas gracias,’ he says when he wants to be really polite), 
and turned his old mare’s head up the trail. We soon passed a small 
spring oozing out of solid rock, which I thought was the watering- 
place. In the next little valley, he muttered something about the 
unreliability of Mexicans as guides, referring to the directions he 
had just received. I had a feeling that he was going to get us into 
another pickle, and rode down the draw to look for water, which I 
found in the bed of the wash. It was rather hard and had an oily 
scum on the surface; but it would soon be dark, so the scum would 
pass unnoticed. We unpacked in a little clearing nearby. 


November 17. 


Today we crossed more hills,—mostly lava-covered,—over rocky 
trails that made the mules step carefully. As we descended long 
cordones into the valley of Bacadéhuachi, the formation changed 
from strata of lava, badly broken and lying at all angles, as though 
tossed about by some gigantic upheaval of the earth, to a sort of vol- 
canic shale of a yellowish white color; then, lower down, to sand- 
stone conglomerate; and finally to red clay, which was deposited in 
a level stratum and underlies, throughout, the gravelly capping of 
the flat mesitas in the valley-bottom. Toward the east, is the Sierra 
de Comvirginia, or Sierra de Bacadéhuachi,—tall, steep, formidable ; 
enclosing the valley on the other three sides are rounded hills, too 
low to be called mountains. The whole valley is, I should judge, ten 
miles north and south, by five east and west. Looking from the 
tops of the hills we crossed, it resembles a vast bowl, the smooth, 
nearly-level bottom of which is rent throughout its length by a shal- 


16 SouTHWEST MuSEUM PAPERS 


low narrower valley, into which lead small lateral cajoncitos. The 
longitudinal valley contains the Rio de Bacadéhuachi, which at the 
northern end is merely a dry, rocky arroyo with a few pools of 
water,—in reality a non-functioning branch of the real rio, which 
has its source at springs in the southwest corner, as it were, of the 
bowl, and flows eastward past the town of Bacadéhuachi, where it 
turns south and soon enters a narrow gap in the hills. Alongside 
the arroyo, at the foot of the mesitas are fields cultivated by the 
people of the town and by ranchers of lesser estate who live in 
diminutive adobe houses on their land. 

Everywhere, there is a profusion of mesquite; and on the slopes 
of the rocky hills are numerous clusters of pitalla, a cactus that 
resembles saguaro, in a way, but has long slender branches growing 
more or less vertically from a common root, instead of the saguaro’s 
thick trunk. It is not an unattractive plant, but the abundance and the 
sharpness of its thin black “needles” make it a perfectly worthless 
one—except for scenery. Another desert plant I have not seen 
before is a weird tree with writhing branches that taper toward the 
end, and strong thorns, like those of the ocatilla, growing out of 
yellow, flaky, transparent bark. 

At the first pool of water in the bed of the rio, we stopped and 
made camp in a little clear space in the brush. A ranchero came to 
offer us his milpa for pasture, which I rented for the night at twenty 
centavos per animal. He, like all the other people of the valley that 
we met, treated us with the utmost cordiality and goodwill. Here, 
every face is an honest one, which cannot be said of the lowering 
features of many of the people farther north, who enjoy (I believe 
I am justified in using the word, literally) an unsavory reputation. 

After supper, a relative of the ranchero, a hearty simple soul, 
rode up in search of a lost burro packed with a good load of corn. 
Morquecho’s invitation to stop and smoke a cigarette and talk a bit 
was readily accepted (no one can resist Morquecho when he wants 
to talk), and the poor burro was left to wander, or to fall, perhaps, 
under its heavy load and remain unfound in the thick mesquite. 
They sat by the fire until it died—long after George and I had gone 
to bed,—the younger man listening with unconcealed admiration to 
Morquecho’s tales of mines, and punching cattle in the good old 
days, and hunting. 

November 18. 


Our friend, don Cristobal Valencia by name, owner of our 
cornfield, came to camp early this morning, before we had finished 
breakfast. With him I went to see a site up the valley (No. 34 on 
map). We climbed the point of a mesita that stands as an elevated 
peninsula between the rio and the Arroyo de San Francisco. Sherds 
were scattered profusely along its narrow crest. Here and there 
were outcropping lines of stones, indicating the positions of ancient 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA re, 


houses, probably constructed of brush, long since fallen and rotted 
away. For half a mile or so, we rode along the ridge, the whole 
length of which was covered with sherds, to a large group of out- 
lined rooms at a point where the mesa broadened. We stopped to 
make a collection and to photograph one of the rooms; then rode 
across the Arroyo de San Francisco to a small cave, in which there 
was nothing. Our conversation, as we rested in the mouth of the 
cave, turned to ruins in the Valley of Mexico. I praised the Mexi- 
cans and their federal government highly for the interest they take 
in the preservation of their ruins. He retaliated with some polite 
remark about the American people; and we sat there quite a while 
smoking and flattering each other. My diplomacy bore fruit, for, 
on the way back to camp, he invited us to spend the afternoon and 
the night at his house in town, adding that he would be glad to show 
me more ruins after lunch. I accepted, highly pleased by the pros- 
pect of eating a meal or two not of my own cooking. 

Don Cristobal’s house is more or less exactly like every other 
house of the better class in Bacadéhuachi, a single row of rooms 


House tops and patios of Bacadéhuachi, Sierra de Bacadéhuachi in the 
distance, as seen from the roof of the old church 


18 SoUTHWEST MusSEUM PAPERS 


facing the street. To say that the thick walls are of adobe is needless, 
since in speaking of the majority of North Mexican houses, that 
goes without saying. It is pierced in the middle by the zagudn, 
through which people and horses, and various other animals, enter 
from the street when the heavy double door is open. The inner wall 
is arched over the entry. On either side of the stone-paved zagudn 
is a doorway opening into a room. ‘The one on the right is a bed- 
room and contains, besides the bed, an olla of local manufacture 
filled with cool water from a little stone-lined ditch running down 
the street outside; a half gourd from which the water is drunk; 
and various cheap, highly colored pictures of santos, without which 
no Mexican housewife would live for a minute. The room on the 
left contains corn-fodder and is kept securely locked. Back of the 
house is a large corral, enclosed on the other three sides by an adobe 
wall, upon the top of which has been placed and weighted down 
with loose earth, a thatching of grass to prevent erosion. This pees 
ing gives the wall an odd whiskered appearance. 

The kitchen, a mere shelter for the mud stove and the scant 
culinary equipment, was constructed by building a wall of adobe 
out from the corral wall and placing poles horizontally from the 
top of it to a few vertical posts beside the wall of the house and 
covering them with brush and earth. However crude it may be, it 
serves its purpose admirably, and being open on the fourth side, 
the smoke from the stove has plenty of room to go out, thus pro- 
viding good ventilation. This kitchen is fortunate in having two 
mills—one for corn and one for wheat. The former is a scoop 
metate, operated by Mrs. Valencia; the latter is a ponderous affair 
consisting of two thick circular stones placed one upon the other 
with their grinding faces opposed on a horizontal plane. The wheat- 
mill, when in use, is operated by a little boy, who grasps a short, 
thick, horizontal bar, attached at one end to the upper stone, and 
walks around and around in a circle pushing it. 

Diagonally across the corral, is a small pen of brush, used to 
confine stock at night to prevent their disturbing the household. 
Near the middle of the corral stands a shed of poles, which is only 
partly covered by a plank and a pole or two. Its use, I can’t imagine; 
we use it as a hitching-rack. Behind the kitchen, there is a pig that 
wallows in a mud-hole and pulls at the chain on its forefoot. We 
are sharing the corral with sundry chickens and dogs, and a wee 
moth-eaten kitten, so young and so poor that it can barely move. 


On our entrance through the back gate of the corral, a covey 
of women, ranging in age from four to forty, dressed mostly in dull 
black muslin, collected in the zagudn to see us. They are the wife 
and the sisters-in-law of don Cristobal. The only male person in 
the establishment, excepting the master of the house, is a wistful, 
bare-footed little boy of eight or ten years. Don Cristobal teases 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 19 


him and asks him whether he would like to go with us. He says, 
no, he wouldn't. The women are, with a single exception, chubby 
persons with light olive complexions, sparkling black eyes and turned- 
up Irish noses. They seemed:rather frightened at first, but are get- 
ting used to us. 

We watched hungrily as preparations for lunch went forward 
in the kitchen. Morquecho was unusually silent until the table was 
brought out, a cloth laid and the food produced, during which opera- 
tions he enlivened progressively. Don Cristobal, prompted by his 
buxom wife, brought for us soap, towel and wash-basin, which he 
set carefully upon a home-made chair. George and I washed. 
“éY usted?” don Cristobal said to Morquecho. “No, thanks, I have 
a cold.” We sat down to an excellent meal of fried eggs, onion soup 
with bits of white cheese floating in it, dried meat, frijoles, baked 
squash, corn tortillas and potent black coffee. Morquecho fell to 
with more than his usual gusto, and talked steadily during the meal. 
His tale of how he lost his upper set of teeth was short but amusing 
—one night they fell out while he was asleep and he swallowed them. 
He was in extraordinarily good form, and by the time he had finished 
his last tortilla and leaned back to light a cigarette, his reputation as 
a man of the world was established. Everywhere we go, we are well 
received—chiefly, I am sure, because of Morquecho’s intriguing 
palaver. 

We took advantage of don Cristdbal’s absence after lunch to 
buy a few supplies, and upon his return, he and I rode out to another 
site (No. 35 on map) of the same type as the one we visited this 
morning. On the way, we passed a rectangular enclosure of stones 
resembling a heavy house foundation built diagonally upon an old 
“slab” house. The pottery, of which there was not a great deal, 
was of the usual plain wares (probably associated with the “slab” 
house), plus modern plain (a coarse smoky red ware with dark 
core) such as the people of Bacadéhuachi make today of the red 
clay in the valley, and a sherd having yellow base and broad-line 
brown decoration interior and exterior. Don Cristobal said that the 
later house was once an Opata dwelling, occupied in historic times, 
the Opatas having at one time been numerous in this district.* 

Having completed our archeological investigations and returned 
to town, don Cristébal suggested visiting the church. I hastily gath- 
ered together my photographic outfit, and was soon ready to go. 
He pointed at my heavy clanking spurs and shook his head. 1, 
rather embarrassed, took them off, with the mumbled excuse that 
“IT was so accustomed—” He and George and I went out to the 
plaza, where I photographed the church, and then entered its high 


4. Bandelier was ‘‘everywhere emphatically assured that all the remains 
along the Sonora stream were those of Opata villages’ (page 489), and he cites 
early Spanish travelers in the region who mention the villages found by them, 
the houses being made of poles and thatch, with stone foundations. 


20 SouTHWEST MusEUM PAPERS 


arched door, hats in hand, as silently as we could. Being totally 
ignorant of ecclesiastical architecture and adornment, I can describe 
the interior only by saying that it, like the exterior, was white-washed 
and contained highly-colored images of saints, before one of which, 
I believe, candles were burning. We climbed a dark treacherous 
caracél stairway and emerged within the base of one of the two 
circular towers, whence we could see the plaza, the housetops and 
patios of the town, the broad valley with its surrounding hills, and 
the Sierra de Bacadéhuachi, now sharply relieved by the warm light 
of the setting sun. Below us, children were playing; old men sat 
on the low terrace in front of the church and craned their necks 
to see us; girls laughed and giggled as they picked over a pile of 
half-ripe oranges from the municipal orange trees. In the center 
of the plaza stood a tiny bandstand, neatly made of wood, set upon 
a hexagonal substructure of bricks, where the town’s brass band 
plays on Sunday nights, while, I suppose, the populace, dressed in 
its very best clothes, promenades on the surrounding walk of earth 
bordered by straight lines of white-washed stones. Around the 
whole runs a wire fence, neat and new, like the walk and the little 
kiosko. The townspeople are very proud of their plaza, as well as 
of their fine old church,—and well, indeed, they might be. 

A few bronze bells, as old, no doubt, as the church itself, hung 
in narrow arched openings in the towers, suspended from rough 
sticks embedded on either side in the masonry. A frayed hair rope 
was tied to the clapper of one of them. We descended a short flight 
of steps to the solid brick roof to photograph the town. A few boys 
stood about silently and watched us. In the plaza below, a man lead- 
ing (or attempting to lead) a squealing pig stopped to pose for his 
picture, amid shouts of glee from everyone. Inside the church again, 
we stood for a moment in a gallery over the entrance for a final 
view of the interior. Women knelt on the bare brick floor facing 
the altar, their heads covered with black mantillas, their lips moving 
in silent enunciation of their prayers. We climbed carefully down 
the caracol and walked out as quietly as we could with our high- 
heeled boots. I was glad I had left my spurs at home. 

The church, so I was told, was built in 1562 by the Jesuits. 
(Some say it is older).» Although it is small, in comparison with 


5. Lumholtz gives interesting testimony on this point: ‘‘While inspect- 
ing the church Professor Libbey discovered that one of the holy water fonts or 
stoups was a piece of great antiquity, and we were informed that it had been 
dug up from the débris of the ancient temple when the foundations for the 
present building were laid ... . The vase is a most valuable relic of pre- 
historic Mexico, not only as a masterpiece of ancient art, but still more as a 
bbe ge or sign-post showing the trend of Aztec migrations.” (Lumholtz, 
page 18. 

Bandelier says (footnote, page 508) that ‘‘the present church of Bacadé- 
huachi is a remarkable structure, but it dates from the closing years of the 
past century (the 18th), when the Franciscans had charge of the former Jesuit 
missions. Remains of the old Jesuit church still exist and I was informed 
that it contained two stone idols of ancient make.”’ 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA Zi 


most of the old churches, here it is considered very large, and, in- 
deed, it does stand out conspicuously amid the flat-roofed one-story 
houses. Throughout, it is constructed of locally made brick and 
mortar, coated inside and out, as I have said, with lime whitewash. 
At the present time, it is badly in need of repair, a recent earthquake 
having shaken down the upper portion of its towers and made a 
large crack over the doorway. ‘The primitive simplicity of its con- 
struction makes it attractive, even in its present state of dilapidation. 
The people of the town intend, some day, to restore it to its original 
condition. 

Supper was eaten in the open corral by the light of a lamp, 
which the women later borrowed to say their prayers before the 
santos in the bedroom. Morquecho, moved, perhaps, by their devo- 
tion, talked of God and the futility of living. “Con facilidad entramos 
en este mundo, mds facilmente salimos. La vida es un sopolo’*’— 
and so ad infinitum. 

November 19. 

It was bitterly cold when we crawled, shivering, out of bed long 
before sunrise, and walked about the dark corral to keep ourselves 
warm while we waited—hours, it seemed—for breakfast. When the 
sun hesitantly peeped into the corral, we were in line with our backs 
to the adobe wall, feeling almost as ‘miserable as though our resem- 
blance to doomed prisoners awaiting a firing squad had been reality. 
Don Cristobal soon called us to breakfast. We ate great stacks of 
tortillas and drank cup after cup of steaming coffee. Morquecho 
asked my permission to have his hair cut—an outlandish request at 
that time of day, but I had to let him go. Accordingly he hurried 
away as soon as he finished eating, and George and I left the imagined 
warmth of the kitchen to pack. 

One of Morquecho’s newly-made friends arrived with samples 
of ore for him to diagnose. He, when he finally returned from 
the barber’s shop, solemnly pronounced them to be something or 
other, and began talking. I had to stop him, or we should certainly 
have been there yet. As it was, it was late in the morning when 
we threw the last hitch, thanked Mrs. Valencia for her hospitality 
and rode through the zagudn into the street. Don Cristobal accom- 
panied us half a mile out of town to show us the way. 

The road soon entered the winding cafion of the Rio de Bacadé- 
huachi and followed down the shallow stream, crossing it at fre- 
quent intervals. Towering cliffs of brown-red volcanic stone con- 
fronted us at the bends of the cafion and hemmed us in on either 
side. On the less precipitous crags and slopes, grew innumerable 
pitallas. In many places, a yellow-barked tree clung to the bare rock, 
its roots growing into cracks for moisture and support. Open 


6. ‘‘With ease we enter into this world; more easily, we leave it. Life 
is but a breath.’’ 


Ze SouTHWEST MusEuM PAPERS 


spaces at the mouths of smaller canons afforded us brief glimpses 
of the extremely rough country through which the canon runs. 

A mile or two below the Rancho de San Gabriel, which is said 
to be three and a half leguas from Bacadéhuachi, we stopped to camp 
for the night on a level bench underneath great arching mesquites. A 
vaquero from San Gabriel, who was returning from the lower part 
of the cafion, told Morquecho that below here the trail degenerates 
into cow-paths and the going is rather hard. He advised us to go 
over the hills to the Nacori road, thence south on the camino real; 
but I prefer almost any sort of reasonably level trail to the heart- 
breaking ups and downs of mountain roads. And, too, there may 
be something interesting ahead of us. 

At Bacadéhuachi, we made three acquisitions of major impor- 
tance, viz: a lantern, two kilos of delicious white Mexican cheese, and 
a dog. By the light of the lanterns, bean-picking will be less laborious, 
less a matter of chance, and I shall be able to write more comfort- 
ably; the cheese will supplement our fare of bacon, biscuits and 
beans; the dog will (I hope) warn us of the approach of bandits, 
of which we have encountered none, although we have heard many 
tales concerning them. He (the dog) has no name. Morquecho 
suggested calling him Carajo, but Morquecho’s sense of humor is 
in this case, I think, a little too broad. Ladies, hearing me calling 
the dog, might be offended. Instead, I think I shall call him Cristobal 
Valencia, in honor of his former master. 


Sunday, November 20. 


This morning for the first time since—I don’t know when— 
getting up at dawn was not unpleasant. The air was cool, but not 
cold, and there was no dew on the grass. We are getting into the 
tierra caliente, where palms grow and snow 1s unknown,—but we are 
still a long way from the tropics. 

We were packed and on our way fairly early, headed down the 
cafion. At an opening where two other cafions join the Bacadéhuachi, 
I climbed to an elevated bench or terrace on the hillside, and found 
there a small site (No. 36 on map). Nearby, on a level promontory 
at the mouth of one of the lateral cafions, I found a larger one, (No. 
37 on map) with well-defined “slab” rooms, a rectangular enclosure of 
loose stones in the center of the ruin and an abundance of decorated 
sherds. I made a good collection, paced off distances and sketched 
the ground-plan, and took a few photographs, which, unfortunately, 
cannot show the character of the ruin as well as they might had I 
been able to take them from a more elevated position. The site is 
identical with those I saw farther north, with the addition of the 
enclosure of stones. 

When I caught up with the outfit, it was waiting for me. I told 
George that I was able to follow the mules anywhere. “In the 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA va 


Opening of Cation, Rio de Bacadéhuachi 


future,” I said, “go ahead without worrying about me.” Proud talk! 
Morquecho objected to my riding alone because I might be killed 
by someone who would hesitate to attack the three of us. Quite 
true. 


Near the mouth of the cafion, where the Rio de Bacadéhuachi 
joins the Rio de Bavispe (Rio de Granados, it is called here abouts), 
we passed a cave, apparently inaccessible, perched on the face of the 
cliff about thirty feet above the arroyo. It was large enough for 
use and had a smoked roof, but appeared to be empty. I rode by, 
thinking “what’s the use of going into it,—it’s empty, anyway.” Be- 
fore long, my conscience pricked me. After all, there might be 
something in it. So I told George to go ahead with the outfit, and 
rode back, took off my boots and climbed. Inside, there was no 
sign of occupation, excepting the blackened roof and a faint, partially- 
obliterated black ring eighteen inches in diameter, inside which was 
a circle of dots, painted on the wall. An enormous quantity of small 
granular objects, which I supposed were bat guano, partially filled 
the cave and sloped steeply upward between its converging sides 
toward the rear. I climbed this talus to make a thorough investiga- 
tion, my bare feet sinking into the loose guano, my hand ready to 
fly to my revolver in case a mountain-lion or a hiding bandit growled 


24 SouTHWEST MusEUM PAPERS 


at me. I felt rather like a child going upstairs in the dark. In the 
rear there was more guano. I sketched the painted figure, climbed 
down to the arroyo, pulled on my boots and rode after the mules. 

The sudden appearance of the swift stream of the Bavispe sur- 
prised me. I had no idea it was so near. Following the tracks of 
our mules, I rode down the river-bank a few hundred yards into 
thick brush. The tracks disappeared where a trail started up the 
hillside. I went back to the water’s edge, forded the stream, crossed 
a gravelly stretch and forded it again, this time through deep water. 
On the next gravelly bar, I found cow tracks, but no trace of the 
mules. ‘“That’s odd,” I thought, “maybe they inadvertently went 
upstream, instead of down, ;’ so I turned and rode back, this time 
going up the Bavispe above the mouth of the arroyo. No sign of 
anything there, as I had expected. Here and there I rode, looking 
closely at the ground, unable to find where the mules had gone. 
There I was, in the heart of a wild country inhabited only by sup- 
positious bandits and half-wild cows—and the sun was ready to set. 
I thought of my boast to George, and of how unpleasant it is to sleep 
in a pair of saddle-blankets with an unsympathetic horse and an empty 
stomach for companions. 

As a last resort, I rode again up the arroyo, where I picked up 
the tracks, then followed them painstakingly into the brush at the 
foot of the hill, back and down to the edge of the water. At the 
very brink, I noticed a mule’s track. Also, I noticed an even better 
_horse’s track leaving the water,—in fact there were several horse- 
tracks going and coming. That puzzled me. Perhaps they had found 
the water too deep for the packs at the second crossing; perhaps— 
well, perhaps almost anything. It was evident that I had to do some- 
thing and do it before dark. Therefore, I tore a leaf from my note- 
book, on which I wrote in Spanish, “I am going down the river, to 
the south,” put it in a conspicuous place weighted down with a rock, 
and plunged boldly into the unknown waters of the Bavispe. — 

I was rather irritated when I found, on the second stretch of 
gravel, perfectly plain tracks that I had overlooked before, although 
I must admit that the sight of them cheered me. And farther down 
I crossed the queer-shaped track of the macho’s right hind shoe, the 
unmistakable track that I had previously learned to look for when 
in doubt. And then, best of all, there was the outfit at a bend of 
the river—waiting for me! 


November 21. 


If ever I come down this river again, it will be in a boat! We 
forded the river sixteen times today traveling a distance I estimate 
to be eight miles; and we spent one hour crossing a ridge a quarter 
of a mile wide, in order to avoid.a bad bend in the river. Each 
crossing was a major operation. Counting the four we made yes- 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 25 


terday, we have a total of twenty crossings to our credit—and we 
are still in the canon.‘ 


The most fun, though, we had this afternoon, just above where 
we are now camped. Crossing and recrossing the river had become 
rather boring, when the cafion turned sharply to the right and ran 
between two precipitous cliffs, as high as the Rock of Gibraltar, 
through a sort of ridge, or, more properly speaking, a mountain. 
The mules scrambled over a jumbled mass of large granite boulders, 
barely able to get through the gap. One of them fell and had to be 
helped to her feet. There was no trail, of course, and the river 
was too deep to navigate without swimming. It was a bad place. 
Beyond the gap, the river immediately swung to the left and broke 
through the same ridge the second time. We expected another dif- 
ficult barrier, but we had no trouble here. The river began to run 
parallel to the ridge again, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief, which 
was scarcely completely exhaled when it swung to the right and flowed 
squarely through the same ridge again,—the third time within two 
miles, at the most. I rode into the stream to get the lay of the 
land. Below, water spread in a solid sheet fifty yards wide between 
two cliffs as perpendicular and almost as smooth as the wall of a 
house. The first possible landing-place was three or four hundred 
yards away. “Cripes,” I thought, “what now?’ To climb out of 
the cafion was utterly impossible. We had three alternatives: to 
go through the gap; to go back to Bacadéhuachi; to stay where we 
were. Obviously the first was the only one worthy of consideration. 

I rode out on a sand-bar until my mare began to sink down to 
her knees. “Lord help us,” I said to myself, “It’s quicksand!” But 
of course it was not, or I should have been left afoot right there. 
Even so, it was bad enough, and I could see through the clear water 
that the whole bed of the river was of the same sand. “Well, maybe 
we make it; maybe we don’t.” With this cheerful thought, I jammed 
my spurs so hard into the old mare’s ribs that she jumped clean into 
the river, and we were off. By working from side to side, I was 
able to find the more elevated spots in the river bottom, and thus 
waded through the gap without getting much more than my stirrups 
wet. Now and then, the mare sank in the sand, and my heart sank 
with her, for I was not entirely free from fear of striking quicksand. 
I spurred her out of the water at the end of the gap and rode onto 
a gravelly island to photograph the outfit. The mare sank in nearly 
to her belly and struggled hard to keep from going down. I had 
gone from the frying-pan into the fire! I leaped off without the loss 


7. Bandelier encountered similar difficulties in the Sonora River valley. 

“To give an idea of the narrowness of the defiles it suffices to state that from 

the Ojo de Agua del Valle, where the Sonora rises, to Babiacora, in a distance 

of about one hundred and twenty miles, the traveller has to cross and recross 
the stream more than a hundred times.’’ : 

Bandelier, page 483. 


26 SouTHWEST MusEuM PAPERS 


of a moment; pulled her out of the bog; leaped on; crossed the head 
of a run to dry land; leaped off again and got my picture. The 
mules waded out of the water and passed me. That was that, gracias 
a Dios! 

Half a mile below the gap, we camped. After building a fire 
and putting the beans on to boil, George and I went to a pool below 
a large rapid for a swim. The water seemed only a degree or two 
warmer than ice. Had I not needed a bath so urgently, I should 
never have been so foolhardy as to go into it. George swam around 
like a fish, enjoying it. While dressing, I noticed that the sand in 
the river was full of little flakes of gold; but that 1 thought hardly 
possible—it must have been fool’s gold. 

When we returned to camp, Morquecho surprised me by asking 
for a bar of soap, which I gave to him. He went down to the river 
and washed something—his socks, I believe. Having heard of a 
ruin opposite a jacalito similar to the one across the river from our 
camp, I went to the top of a mesita, where, sure enough, I found a 
ruin—one so interesting that I stayed there until it grew too dark 
to collect sherds. Tomorrow I shall go back to it to photograph as 
much of it as I can. Morquecho said it is called Pueblo Viejo (No. 
38 on map). 

November 22. 

As soon as we finished breakfast, George and I hurried to the 
ruin with the camera, my notebooks and the machete to finish the 
job that I started last night. Wiuth the machete, we cleared two of 
the rooms and photographed them. A thorny bush of the cat-claw 
kind, which here grows in quantities, made the clearing of the rooms 
painful work. Our hands were all prickled and scratched when we 
finished. Then followed the writing of a few notes and the collect- 
ing of more sherds, after which we went back to camp and packed 
the mules. Morquecho mounted his mare, and we turned again to 
the river. 

After the second or third crossing below Pueblo Viejo we met 
a young vaquero, who was riding up river hunting a certain cow to 
butcher. Robinson Crusoe could have been no more surprised when 
he saw Friday’s footprint than I was when I saw this man. My 
first thought was that he was lost. Morquecho soon persuaded him 
to abandon the cow to become our guide, of which I was glad. He 
called his two dogs, and we continued down the cafion—all of us 
excepting the old black mule. She, out of pure “cussedness,”’ walked 
back to the deepest place in the river and swam to the other side. 

Today we forded the river only fourteen times, making a total 
of thirty-four for the entire voyage. Once we went through a 
water-filled gap like Number Three, but not so deep. | 

We are now camped on a sandy flood-plain on the south bank 
of the Rio de Aros, just above its junction with the Bavispe. Above 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA oF 


us, at the foot of the hill, is the vaquero’s little ranch—a jacalito and 
a corral. Needless to say, we are glad to be out of the canon of the 
Bavispe, although we are in another, which, the vaquero says, is even 
worse, unless you know the trails. Lucky for us that we met him! 


When I opened the panniers that were on the black mule, I 
found several quarts of water in each. Even the lantern, which was 
tied outside, was so full of water that it sputtered languidly a few 
times, when [ lit it, and went out. Our matches, sugar, salt, rice 
and cornmeal (the last two being luxuries that we saved for special 
occasions) were soaked. To make matters worse, a few sacks of 
tobacco in the pannier with the rice and cornmeal had impregnated 
these delicacies with tobacco-juice. I filled all the available pots 
with the latter, in spite of its nicotine content—and cooked it for 
supper, determined to salvage as much as I could. 


The vaquero and his young brother-in-law spent the evening 
sitting by our smoky fire listening to Morquecho’s stories. George 
went for a swim in the river. I, being tired, went to bed. 


A watery gap above the junction of Rios Bavispe and Aros 


November 23. « 


Breakfast this morning was not a complete success. The beans 
had not cooked during the night and were so uninviting that no one 
touched them. Instead of biscuits (there was not enough wood to 
bake them), we had cold cornmeal mush. The coffee was not all 
that it might have been. The bacon was greasy, due to the inadequacy 
of the fire. 


28 SouTHWEST MusEuM PAPERS 


We ate, however, and were away before long. The vaquero 
is guiding us, having consented to show us the way to Lampazos. 
It soon became evident to me that without him we should have 
found it almost impossible to go down the valley of the Rio de Aros. 
The river is deep and wide, being twice as large, below the junction, 
as the Bavispe; the trails are hidden by rocks and brush, and the 
best of them are barely passable. 


The day was fairly fruitful archeologically. A short distance 
above the junction of the river, I climbed a promontory projecting 
into the very stream of the Aros, where I found a small site, which 
was in no way unusual. From the edge of the point I photographed 
the valley below, which with its rocks and hills and their reflections 
in the expansive mirror of the placid water, made an extraordinarily 
pleasing picture. George called my attention to a panel of carv- 
ings on a rock below the site which I stopped to photograph. The 
panel is about three feet in height by one in width and is composed 
in a manner reminiscent of the inscribed face of a Maya stela of 
the Old Empire. While it is artistically, as well as geographically, 
far removed from anything in the Maya area, it is equally as unlike 
any pictographs I have seen in Sonora or in the Southwest. I am 
sure that the carving is not modern. A few miles down the 
river, where we left the valley to climb into the hills on the right, 
we crossed another site of fair size with an abundance of pottery 
(No. 39 on map). Then at the Rancho de Buena Vista on the Rio 
de Aros at the mouth of the Arroyo de Chiticahui, we crossed a 
large site of the same type, and a rancher told me that there are at 
least three others in the vicinity. 


We made camp earlier than usual in the dry bed of an arroyo 
below the ranch. The guide, who is a very good fellow, appropriated 
three large green squashes from a cornfield and bought for us at 
the ranch, an entire “cheese of the country” (queso del pais) weigh- 
ing all of twenty pounds. Morquecho became hilarious at the sight 
of so much good food, and sat on the low arroyo bank cracking his 
ribald jokes to an appreciative audience of young men from the 
rancho. One of them was carrying a fine rawhide lariat such as 
the vaqueros use, which I bought for ten pesos. * 


In the evening, several soft-voiced old men arrived to visit 
us. They, like nearly every other Mexican ranchero of the passing 
generation that I have met were gentlemen in the truest sense of the 
word. Their personalities, mellowed by time and the simplicity of 
their manner of living, lack any trace of the smart brusqueness so 
characteristic of the younger Mexicans; their amiable dignified 


8. Both Bandelier and Lumholtz describe a group of pictographs near 
Granados, Sonora, known locally as the Cara Pintada. See Lumholtz, page 15, 
for illustration and description; and Bandelier, page 506. 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 29 


courtesy, I am sure, bespeaks goodwill.® Living away from the 
towns, deprived of churches and schools, their religion is more 
philosophical than dogmatic, and true wisdom, born of innate in- 
telligence nurtured by years of observation, supplies their want of 
learning. The unceasing political turbulence of their country has 
tinged their philosophy of life with submission to the inevitable de- 
crees of fate, but not with pessimism. 

The conversation turned from ribaldry to a discussion of mines 
and metals. We are now, so I was told (and so it appears to me), 
in the heart of a region literally girt with riches. To our right, to 
our left, before and behind, stand mountains of copper ore, and 
mountains in which rich veins of silver, gold, lead and perhaps other 
valuable minerals await him who cares to dig them out. Mining is 
carried on sporadically and on a small scale by a few local people, 
the ore being packed on burros over the sierras to the smelter at 
Lampazos. The extreme inaccessibility of this district would neces- 
sitate the expenditure of millions of dollars in order to make mining 
profitable, but the returns, I should think, would be gratifying to 
the investor. 

Our visitors, old and young, left in a body for the ranch. Mor- 
quecho and the guide scraped away the coals of a great fire of logs 
that they had built, dug a hole and buried the disemboweled squashes 
in the superheated gravel, heaping the coals over them again to in- 
sure their being well baked in the morning. Now they are sitting 
near the glowing mound. Morquecho is spinning long tales of mines, 
interspersed with accounts of amorous adventures of his youth, to 
the guide, who beats the fire intermittently with a stick, making 
clouds of sparks fly from it. George and Cristdbal Valencia have 
long been asleep in their saddle-blankets. My little tin lantern blinks 
and sputters as though it were tired of burning. Above, the stars 
shine clearly, suspended in the soft blackness of the firmament. A 
cool moist breeze blows gently down the valley, carrying with it the 
discontented barking of a restless dog. Another day is done. 


November 24. 

Thanks to the guide’s lenient attitude toward property rights, 
we breakfasted very well this morning. The squash, thoroughly 
baked, was delicious—so delicious, in fact, that I put what little re- 
mained into a pot to take with us. Such good food is not to be 
wasted. 

The visitors of last night came again to see us, and remained 

9. Lumholtz speaks no less highly of these people: “It has been my lot 
to travel for years in Mexico, and my experience with her people only tended to 
deepen the pleasant impression I received at the outset. Anyone who travels 
through Mexico well recommended and conducts himself in accordance with the 
standard of a gentleman is sure to be agreeably surprised by the hospitality and 
helpfulness of the people, high and low, and it is not a meaningless phrase of 


politeness only by which a Mexican ‘places his house at your disposal.’ ”’ 
Lumholtz, pages 13-14. 


30 SouTHWEST MusEuM PAPERS 


until we were packed and ready to go. The trail led abruptly up the 
steep side of the hill to the west. At the top, I stopped for a last 
look at the Rio de Aros and for a picture. We crossed a succession 
of small ridges to a small gently-sloping arroyo, which we followed 
down to the valley in which is the arroyo that runs past Badesi. 
The geological formations were a bewildering variety of what I took 
to be copper ores, thick ledges of green copper-stained stone being 
in the majority. I made a collection of samples as I rode along, 
and amused myself for a considerable time by organizing mining 
corporations and building railroads to exploit the treasures of the 
Aros. I was so busy becoming the wealthiest man in the world that 
I nearly took the trail leading down the valley to Badesi instead of 
the one north to Lampazos. West of the ridge we had crossed, the 
copper-stained strata gave way to ledges and hills of a hard gray 
stone in which veins of white meandered and criss-crossed as though 
they had been poured while in a molten state. Layers of brown 
shale standing about at varying degrees of steepness wrought con- 
fusion, and deposits of a bright yellow orelike carnotite added color 
to the otherwise monotonous geological array. As we climbed 
laboriously up the high Sierra de Lampazos, the confusion progres- 
sively subsided, until, at the top, the gray white-streaked stone be- 
came practically the only type visible. 

At the Rancho de la Rosa Amarilla (Ranch of the Yellow Rose 
—charming name!), we stopped for the night, because of the scarcity 
of grass and water beyond. The guide led us past the palm-thatched 
stone houses of the ranch, past a corral constructed of the same solid 
material into another walled enclosure in the bottom of a narrow 
valley. Being rocky and sloping, and directly in the line of travel 
of cattle coming out of the hills for water at the spring in one corner, 
the spot was not ideally located, but there was no better place avail- 
able. I was in such savage humor that when Morquecho sat down 
on a rock after unsaddling the mules I told him to get some fire- 
wood, which he did reluctantly. He is usually reasonably industrious. 
The guide immediately made himself useful by going down to the 
spring by the house (the water in our corral is not fit for drinking ) 
for a bucket of water. To add to my annoyance the biscuits that 
I eventually baked were badly burnt on the bottom and positively 
viscous in the center. Then two dogs, one with a booming bass 
voice, the other a biting falsetto, stood outside the fence and barked 
at Cristobal, who regarded them calmly. I, not so calm, threw stones 
at them and became quite exasperated because I invariably missed. 

Our camp, in spite of its flowery name, is not wholly attractive. 


November 25. 


We were up early this morning and soon on our way. The sky 
was so cloudy that had the air been warmer, it would have rained; 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 31 


had it been colder, it would have snowed. Being neither, the atmos- 
phere was leaden like the sky. The view from the top of the sierra, 
which in clear weather must be magnificent, was worth riding weeks 
to see. Gaunt sierras, like sharp waves of a storm-tossed sea, rolled 
away to the eastward, ending with the Sierra Madre, greatest of 
them all, in the misty distance. To the north they broke into a jumble 
of peaks; to the south, the view was restricted by a shoulder of the 
mountain, but as far as the eye could reach they held their parallel 
formation and seemed to continue nearly due south without hint of 
termination. Seven sierras could plainly be seen, each in itself a 
mountain range. Looking toward the west, only two sierras could 
be seen, the more distant of the two only a few miles away. 

Within an hour we were at the outskirts of Lampazos, an ugly 
mining town built along the bottom of a narrow valley high in the 
mountains. Gold and silver are mined, and smelted in a ramshackle 
smelter, which at the present time is inactive. The town was dirty 
and bore an aspect of stagnation. Here, we left the guide and rode 
down the valley to its mouth, whence long cordones led downward 
into the tremendous valley near the center of which lies Tepache. 
The slightly convex floor of the valley appeared to be a smooth plain, 
cut in a few places by arroyos, the smoothness of its surface only 
interrupted by a small conical hill or two near Tepache. When, after 
four or five hours of riding we were well into it, I saw that the 
plain was in reality hummocky, rather rougher than flat. A lava- 
flow six or eight feet in thickness covers it, totally ruining almost the 
whole of it for farming, although an abundance of high grass makes 
it the best grazing land in this part of Sonora. Beef from Tepache, 
according to Morquecho, is noted for its fine quality. 

A pack-train of burros laden mainly with kegs of mescal over- 
took us, and with it we entered the constricted valley of the Arroyo 
de Tepache, a mere crack in the lava, in which is the town of Tepache 
de Abajo (Lower Tepache), completely hidden until the rim of the 
little canon is reached. Protected as it is from cold winds, sugar-cane, 
oranges and plantains grow in the rich soil of the valley, watered by 
a small stream which below the town sinks into the gravel of the 
arroyo bed and disappears. Four kilometers upstream is Tepache de 
Arriba (Upper Tepache), boasting a post-office, telegraph, auto road 
to Nacozari and a church of the colonial period. Morquecho says 
the people are “rich and lazy.” Being himself the poorest of the 
poor, his standard of wealth is not high; but the lower town does wear 
an appearance of prosperity, the houses being well-built of sound 
adobe and kept in good repair. The squalor and filth of most Mexi- 
can pueblos are not much in evidence. 

We cast about for some time for a camp-site and finally chose 
a spot on the western rim of the valley on the trail to Moctezuma. 
I was coiling a pack-rope when an American woman rode up, ac- 


a2 SouTHWEST MusEuM PAPERS 


companied by two Mexicans who drove her pack-mules. I was sur- 
prised, to say the least. “Gee,” she cried, “it’s sure good to see 
an American!” “It sure is,’ I replied. Conversation followed. She 
was a prospector from Nacozari on her way to the wild country six 
or eight days farther south to look for “samples.” “My word,” I 
thought when she told me this, “she has her nerve!’ But she was 
armed with a competent rifle and a revolver, and looked as though 


she might know how to use them. 


November 26. 


Morquecho had trouble finding the stock this morning and we 
consequently made a late start. The mescal-train passed by before 
we had even started packing. Once we started, though, we struck 
our slow walking pace and held it steadily all day, almost without 
pause. The mules are beginning to fatten a little, but their backs 
are still so sore that to trot them would be brutal. My bay mare, 
on the other hand, becomes poorer and more downcast day by day. 
I stopped frequently today to let her graze while I looked without 
success for sherds. Most of the land along the trail is completely 
covered with chunks of lava. Grass grows thick in the bits of soil 
among the rocks which retain moisture long after each rain. Be- 
tween the ranches of Los Charros and Paredones there is a fine 
level Jlano where good crops might be grown, were the supply of 
water in a few springs and arroyos not too meager for irrigation. 
Due to the absence of arable land, the valley was not inhabited in 
prehistoric times excepting along its western edge on the Rio de 
Moctezuma, and possibly at a few places on the Arroyo de Tepache, 
beside which streams there is land for cultivation. 


About noon I began to be hungry. My thoughts turned to food 
and I planned a meal which I was sure would be a culinary master- 
piece. When we stopped on a mesita overlooking the arroyo at 
Paredones, I sent George to get a bucket of water and Morquecho 
to gather firewood, and commenced cooking. Eventually I finished, 
with every kettle and pan in camp full of food: beans, covered with 
grated cheese, stripped with bacon, baked in a pot; sweet potatoes 
from Tepache, likewise baked, almost afloat in a rich syrup of 
panocha; rice with raisins; biscuits ; hot milk flavored with cinnamon. 
It was a beautifully executed meal, but failed to arouse Morquecho 
and George to any great degree of enthusiasm. Each dish lacked 
a little of one thing or had too much of something else. However, 
we ate as heartily as we usually do. 

Afterwards, Morquecho built himself a little fire of his own and 
sat by it, loftily silent until bedtime. George and I spent the eve- 
ning arguing by our fire about a number of inconsequential things, 
becoming mutually irritated. 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 30 


Isidoro Ruiz Morquecho, guide 


November 27. 


For breakfast we had eggs from the ranch and the remains 
of last night’s supper. Morquecho, who had gone to look for the 
stock, reported three of the animals missing. He saddled the mean 
mule and set out again, swearing mightily. George and I packed 
the outfit and sat down to wait. About ten o’clock, here came the 
mules, running as hard as they could with their forefeet hobbled, 
with Morquecho right behind them. His patience, needless to say, 
was exhausted. The mules were nearly exhausted, too. 

The men we passed on our way to Moctezuma impressed me 
very unfavorably. They were all surly, black-visaged people, who, 
I thought, might belong to the horse-thief class of society. Mor- 
quecho says they are an idle lot like the Tepachenos. There 1s cer- 


34 SouTHWEST MusEUM PAPERS 


tainly no pressing need of their working hard to earn a living. The 
river bottom below Moctezuma is composed chiefly of rich black 
soil that is easily irrigated. Sugarcane and corn, the principal crops, 
grow so well that farming is little more than a matter of planting 
and harvesting. On a few farms, men were cutting cane deftly 
with short machetes. The corn in other fields is ready for picking. 
Crops are bountiful. If prosperity perverts a Mexican’s morals as 
Morquecho claims, Moctezuma must be a hot-bed of nefarious 
schemes. 

We camped on the river-bank below town where floods have 
washed the gravel smooth. George resaddled his horse to drag 
across the stream. a heavy cottonwood log for our night-fire. A 
pleasant, jaunty young fellow stopped to make the usual inquiries 
about our business and to relate to Morquecho, who has lived here- 
abouts, the various births, deaths and marriages of the last ten 
years. He stayed until dark and made himself very agreeable, 
particularly by sending a friend who joined him to fetch cane for 
us from a neighboring field. There is a dance in town tonight to 
which he invited us, but we are much too rough and unwashed to 
enter a ballroom. 


November 28. 


On a flat-topped terrace directiy above our camp, I found two 
adjoining sites, (No. 40 and No. 41 on map) which I investigated 
while George and Morquecho assembled the outfit for packing. One 
was of the “slab” type found farther east; the other had a small 
mound in which I dug and found an adobe wall. The pottery at 
both consisted only of plain and incised types. Apparently, they 
represent a culture I have not yet seen. Bandelier, in his Final 
Report, speaks of passing through Oposura (now called Moctezuma ) 
and of noting the presence of decorated wares east of here, whereas 
farther west the pottery had all been plain. At least, this change 
is something new to me. 

Leaving the valley, we began a long easy climb up the Sierra 
de Moctezuma, over the same trail Bandelier had followed coming 
from Baviacora in the valley of the Rio de Sonora. Behind us, 
across the broad valley, lay the pass at the southern tip of the high 
Sierra de Granados, through which an automobile road runs to the 
towns of Granados and Guasabas, and continues eastward as a 
trail to Bacadéhuachi. To the north, toward Nacozari, the valley 
is open and the mountains scattered; to the south, near Batuco, it 
narrows and finally is cut off by close-set sterras which extend to 
the Rio de Aros and the Rio Yaqui, as the river is called below 
Suaqui, where its course turns sharply to the south. Below the 
Rio de Aros, I am told, the country is hilly, rather than mountainous, 
but still far from level. 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 35 


High in the Sierra de Moctezuma, I stopped to collect various 
cacti, which pricked me grievously. A gloomy Mexican passed as 
I knelt against a sloping rock picking out the roots of one of them 
with my pocket-knife, and regarded me slightly contemptuously. 
I felt ashamed of myself, frittering away my time, as it must have 
seemed, with the useless prickly things; but I had promised to bring 
back some “cactuses.” I put them into a sack, the only available 
receptacle, which I tied to my saddle, and rode the rest of the day 
very gingerly. 

The descent on the west side was abrupt. I had expected to 
see the Rio de Sonora in the valley we entered, but it lay beyond 
still another sierra. ‘This valley, which has no river and, so far as 
I know, no name, is ribbed laterally with cordones so nicely rounded 
that one might almost believe they were artificially made. Thrifty 
oaks fill the multitude of ravines, and are scattered over the undulat- 
ing hills and ridges. Tall grass grows everywhere, tinting the en- 
tire valley a soft, almost golden, brown. Visually, it appears to be 
exceedingly rich pasturage for stock, but in reality the grass has 
little nutritional value. In favored spots, cattle find comparatively 
meager growths of grama, upon which they subsist. 

In one of the ravines through which the trail passed, we camped 
near a small seepage of sweetish soapy water. 


November 29. 


A few miles this side of our camp at the soapy springs, we 
met an American cow-puncher, the second gringo we have seen. 
who is in charge of a ranch composed, apparently, of the whole of 
this valley. Like everyone else we have met, he thought we were 
prospectors. When I told him we were looking for ruins, he urged 
me to go to Rodéo, where, he said, the Apaches and Yaquis formerly 
gathered in great numbers. I was interested and promised to do 
so, since Rodéo lies not far out of our way. We rode on, through 
Bacachi, Las Lajas and Las Lajitas, all of which are ranches owned 
by the American cattle company, and late in the afternoon came 
to the abandoned ranch of Rodéo. Half a mile below the corrals 
and empty houses of the ranch, we found abundant water and un- 
packed in the bed of a dry arroyo. 

Supper having been eaten in due course of time, Morquecho 
pointed out various places where he says there are mines and told 
me the history of each of them. A few miles south of here, he 
said, the Apaches have a mine which they work at times and guard 
constantly,—all of which may be true. He holds the popular belief 
that the ruins to be found in Sonora are remains of mining-outposts 
of the Aztec king, Moctezuma. As proof that the former inhabi- 
tants were miners, they say that the metates left behind when the 
villages were abandoned were used for grinding ore! That, I think, 


36 SouTHWEST MusEuM PAPERS 


is stretching the point a bit. It never occurs to them that the 
ancient people grew corn and ground it on metates, just as they 
themselves do today. 


November 30. (Payday). 


As usual, we arose this morning, cooked, ate, washed the dishes, 
packed and rode on our way. This daily routine is becoming slightly 
monotonous. Life in camp is romantic, no doubt, but to the camper 
it soon becomes plain hard work—a “dog’s life,” as it is sometimes 
called. The best part of a pack-trip begins the day it ends. 

Before we packed, I rode to the top of a knoll beside the arroyo 
and found a site (No. 42 on map). Since no trace of building shows 
itself on the surface of the ground, although sherds are plentiful, I 
surmise that it was occupied by nomads, or by hunting-parties from 
the Sonora valley. Water and farm-land are so scarce here that I 
doubt whether a sedentary agricultural population could have sup- 
ported itself. Nomads would have found it an ideal country for 
their winter camps, especially those who, after the coming of the 
Spaniards, had horses. Grass is abundant and the mountains sur- 
rounding the valley are full of game. From here, raids could easily 
have been conducted against the villages in the valleys of the Sonora 
and the Moctezuma. In fact, a stone fort, built on this knoll by 
ranchers to defend themselves against the Apaches, offers proof of 
the activities of raiders in recent times. Even today, isolated ranchers 
live in constant fear of the Apaches, whose acts of violence are a 
common topic of conversation. This, however, does not signify 
that there is an Apache hiding behind every bush in Sonora. A 
traveler in this country is probably in less danger of losing his life 
than a motorist on a transcontinental highway. 

] made a collection, took a picture of the fort, returned to camp 
and we took the trail to Baviacora, which led us over a small sierra 
and down an interminable arroyo to the Rio de Sonora. Like’ the 
Moctezuma river, it skirts the western edge of a broad valley. 
_ Ridges with intervening arroyos running down from the sierra we 

crossed occupy the greater part of it, leaving only a narrow winding 
strip for the valley of the river itself. 

We passed the outskirts of Baviacora after the sun had set 
and paused near an acequia to decide upon a spot for our camp. 
The only available place was a damp arroyo bed, already occupied 
by the unsavory body of a dead dog. A townsman, coming to the 
ditch for a bucket of water, offered us his field for the night, thereby 
rescuing us from a dreadful dilemma. Once in the field I was 
tempted to leave it. It was full of sand-burs. Everywhere we 
stepped—especially everywhere we sat—there were any number of 
them. 

Our landlord, who was a good soul, tore down his brush fence 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 37 


to provide us with firewood, and brought us panocha and a sort of 
sorghum from his sugar mill. Then he and Morquecho sat by the 
fire and talked about what thieves some people are, compared with 
the honest citizens of Baviacora. It was like a meeting of the 
Society for Mutual Admiration. 


Morquecho forgot his quirt when we left camp and didn’t 
notice its absence until we were going through Baviacora on our 
way up the valley. “What does it matter?” he said with a careless 
shrug; but I knew that the whole of his worldly goods were in his 
tight little pack on the macho’s back, and that what little he owns 
is precious to him; so I turned and rode back to the sand-bur patch, 
where I found the quirt. When I rode up to hand it to him, he said, 
“Don’t you want to keep it?” He wanted me to accept it as a reward 
for what he considered an act of kindness. Somewhere, perhaps in 
the Bible, there is written something to the effect that not all wealth 
lies in the purse. 


Beyond the town, we rode through an avenue bordered by rich 
orange groves, the trees laden with ripe fruit, and through the little 
pueblo of San José, where women stood in the street bargaining for 
slices and strips of meat that hung in an itinerant butcher’s cart. 
As we passed, conversation ceased while the populace stared at us 
through windows and doorways, then started again with renewed 
vigor. At Estancia and above that town at a point opposite San 
Felipe, which lies on the opposite bank of the river, I found sites 
(No. 44 and No. 45 on map) on flat points of the mesa that bounds 
the river valley on the east. The sites at the latter place have unmis- 
takable mounds, the washed-down remains of adobe houses—the first 
example of the extensive use of adobe that I have found.’® Being 
directly on the automobile road from Nacozari, in a fruitful valley 
where labor is cheap, they would be ideal for excavation, especially 
for a winter operation, since the climate here is very mild. 

Not far from Estancia we passed a sugar-mill running full 
blast. In front of an adobe building in which were vats of boiling 
syrup, was the juice-extractor. A burro, hitched to the end of a 
long horizontal pole, walked slowly in a large circle, driven by a boy, 
Other boys tossed sticks of cane from a large pile in the yard to 
three men who sat in single file feeding them into the revolving steel 


10. ‘‘The character of the ruins along the Sonora River as far as Bavia- 
cora may be summed up in a general picture. From ten to fifty small houses. 
with a substructure of rubble, irregularly scattered, and enclosures, also of 
rubble but not connected together, formed a village. Of what material the 
superstructure, the walls, and the roof were made, can only be surmised. From 
descriptions I judge that the walls were usually made of poles and yucca leaves 
daubed over with mud, and the gable roofs of yucca or fan-palm leaves sup- 
ported by rafters. 


“Another class of ruins shows low mounds . . . . It is difficult to 
determine whether the mounds were houses or not. They are composed mostly 
of gravel, and seem unfit for walls of any height.’’ 

Bandelier, Page 487. 


38 SoUTHWEST MusEUM PAPERS 


rollers of the machine for which the sleepy burro supplied power. 
It struck me that two of the feeders might just as well have been 
doing something else—but that would have left the remaining man 
without anyone to talk to! 

George held the mules in the road below Huépaca while Mor- 
quecho and I rode into the town to buy a coffee-pot, our old one 
having sprung a leak on the way yesterday to Baviacora. The town 
was in no way unusual. We had considerable difficulty in finding 
a pot large enough for our needs, and were ready to give up our 
search, when a woman brought a sizeable tea-pot she said she had 
bought for a wedding. I bought it from her at an outrageous price. 
We went back to the mules, rode on to Triunfo, and turned down 
to the river to camp. Half a dozen witless boys sat on their horses 
watching us make camp, then did movie-stunts to show us how well 
they could ride. We were not greatly impressed. 


December 2. 


I was awakened at some early hour this morning by Morquecho, 
who had a bad attack of coughing. Thinking that it was nearly day- 
light, I dressed and stirred the coals of the fire and sat by it, wait- 
ing for the dawn. Somewhere in the darkness toward Triunfo, a 
rooster or two crowed half-heartedly. It was very cold. I wanted 
to go back to bed, but was afraid that I might oversleep; so I sat 
smoking cigarettes, scorching my knees while my back was frozen, 
waiting. At last, after two or three uncomfortable hours, I mixed 
the biscuits by the light of the fire, and by the time it was fully light, 
had breakfast ready. Morquecho said that when he saw me get up 
at such an unearthly time of night, he thought I was sick.. How- 
ever, my early rising was not wholly in vain, for we were on our 
way again shortly after sunrise. 

The road continued up the valley along the eastern side of the 
river, past tiny villages where the farming population lives. Here, 
as in the Moctezuma valley, corn and sugar-cane are practically the 
only crops grown. Farmland is rich and abundant, and irrigation 
an easy matter. The whole valley looks very prosperous, and the 
people seem cheerful and contented. Travelers on the road invariably 
greeted us with decent cordiality. An old man sitting in the door 
of a ranch-house above Banamichi fed Cristobal with tortillas when 
he went snooping into the yard, instead of chasing him away. Mor- 
quecho’s observation on the demoralizing influence of prosperity 
seems untenable. 

At Ojo de Agua, I found another site (No. 46 on map) that 
should be excavated. On a broad level mesa above there, where 
I expected from the appearance of it to find a large site, there were 
a few scattered sherds, but I could locate no trace of houses. I did 
find, though, a particularly vicious kind of cactus with waxy yellow 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 39 


spines. Every few steps my horse kicked a branch of it, which 
broke away from the stem, and capered around in distress until I 
dismounted to pull it out. Each time, of course, the branch trans- 
ferred itself to my hand, and when I tried to flip it off, swung 
around to a fresh part and embedded itself more deeply than ever. 
I finally discovered that by using a stick to knock them off the horse’s 
hocks it could be done painlessly. It is the awfullest cactus I ever 
saw. 


The valley above Banamichi gradually narrowed and the farm- 
ing country ended. Having made such an early start in the morn- 
ing, I felt that we were entitled to an equally early stop in the 
afternoon. A little rincén west of the river, filled with mesquite 
and well sheltered from cold winds, presented itself as an excellent 
camping-place, and into it we rode. We cooked a fine supper, 
which included bean soup with cheese and dried peaches steamed with 
panocha, and enjoyed an hour or two of idleness waiting for the 
peaches to be thoroughly done. I had Morquecho sit for a picture 
I had promised him. He was vastly pleased with himself. 

A girl, quite a nice girl of sixteen or so, in Banamichi had 
looked at me and run away as fast as she could, so after supper I 
shaved, in order to forestall any such distressing events in the 
future. 


December 3. 

I have a cold—from shaving, no doubt. 

In the valley again, we soon passed an “island” standing on 
the edge of the stream, upon which I rode to look for a ruin, but 
was disappointed. Farther upstream, I climbed to the top of a 
mesita and was again disappointed. The scarcity of arable land 
must, in prehistoric times, have made living in this part of the 
valley, which is quite narrow, impossible to a large number of people, 
just as it is today. In fact, I believe that the prehistoric population 
of the parts of Sonora I have seen could be very accurately esti- 
mated by basing the calculation upon a count of the present in- 
habitants. The density of population runs fairly consistently in 
proportion to the amount of cultivable land available. It is probably 
true that every piece of ground that is farmed today was farmed 
(and by almost identical methods) in prehistoric times, and vice 
versa. 

Just below Sinoquipe, we came upon a site, (No. 47 on map) 
which I stopped to investigate. The theory of population that I have 
propounded was not violated, for at Sinoquipe the valley broadens 
slightly, providing land for farming. We went by the town without 
stopping, and soon entered a cafion which runs north through the 
hills. At its mouth, the conglomerate formation that runs through 
the lower valley was checked abruptly by rough hills of dark stone 


40 SouTHWEST MusEUM PAPERS 


in which appeared patches and ledges of brightly colored ores— 
green, red, yellow, brown, gray, and various shades of these colors. 
The thick layer of conglomerate, which was compact gravel rather 
than stone, lay perfectly level, apparently laid down during the 
course of countless years by water, perhaps an immense lake, in 
which the range of hills must have stood as islands, for, a few miles 
farther up, the conglomerate reappeared at the same level. As we 
continued north, the cafion narrowed until it was little more than a 
cliff-lined gorge, through which flowed the diminished stream of the 
Sonora River. Modern farmers have built miles of irrigation canal 
of masonry against the cliff, in places literally pasted to the face 
of the rock. 


It was nearly dark when we arrived at a ranch below Bamori 
where Morquecho rented a cornfield for pasture and camping- 
place. Wood was scare and water distant, but we welcomed a chance 
to stop. Outside the field, young couples passed horseback on the 
road, the girl sitting sideways in the saddle, the boy behind, holding 
on for dear life. I don’t know whether they were a-courting or just 
a-traveling, but it looked rather like the former. 


The owner of our cornfield came while we were eating break- 
fast to collect his bill against us—one peso. I thought that was 
pretty cheap. Morquecho began a dissertation on the merits of sandy 
soil for raising ‘‘roots,’’ and became so absorbed in his subject while 
George and I were packing the mules that he was not very helpful. 


Beyond Bamori, we passed a number of not too cordial men 
riding down the valley and were soon within view of Arizpe, which 
lay a mile beyond an isolated hill standing in the middle of the flat 
valley-bottom. I climbed the hill and found a ruin (No. 48 on 
map) that had once crowned it, but is now itself crowned by several 
crumbling adobe houses constructed of earth upon which the ancient 
houses had stood. An old man watched me make a collection from 
the cover of thick brush near the largest house. I felt like a thief 
caught in the act of stealing and hurried to finish my job; then 
snapped a picture of Arizpe with its tall slender tower and shining 
white-washed buildings, and rode away. Above the town, the valley 
ended, the river, scarcely larger than a fair-sized arroyo, coming out 
of the hills to the right. A few miles above the mouth of the small 
valley through which it ran, a vaquero joined us and rode along talk- 
ing with Morquecho. Later he took me to a ruin which was of the 
Sonora valley type, going out of his way to do so (No. 49 on map). 


A mile above a ranch that I believe is called La Cueva Santa, 
we turned due west into a narrow rocky cafion. This we followed 
until we found a sheltered spot, where we unpacked. The weather 
is getting so cold that we choose our camp-sites with care. 

We were preparing to go to bed when Cristébal spied a skunk 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 4] 


next door, as it were. That, of course, upset everything. The next 
few minutes were filled with excitement and—well, odor. The dog 
made a dive for the skunk, which immediately became active. George 
heaved a rock that caught Cristobal in the ribs and brought him out 
of the bushes yelping. Morquecho then walked into the bushes, 
searched a moment, threw a few rocks and presently emerged carry- 
ing the unconscious animal by its bushy white tail, as unconcerned 
as a dog with a bone in its mouth. He stamped on its head a few 
times, and carried it a short distance down the arroyo, and threw 
it down, assuming, I suppose, that the wind will not blow up the 
cahon. Cristobal, in the meantime, was rolling in the sand, having 
discovered that he had come out of the fray with somewhat of a 
stench about him. He came to me for sympathy, but I had none 
for him; he tried George, who treated him coldly, though distantly 
sympathetic. Morquecho spread one of his little deerskin for him 
on the ground near his bed. I really don’t believe he can smell— 
if he can, he’s a better man than I am! 


December 5. 


Pungent reminders of the skunk-fight still floated about this 
morning. We were all relieved to get out of the cafion into fresher 
air—with the possible exception of Morquecho. He likes skunks, 
after a fashion, because their fat makes such good liniment for 
rheumatism. 

The trail crossed a high divide and dropped into a valley at 
the ranch of Huarache (or Huerachi, I don’t know which 1s cor- 
rect). Crossing it, a cold wind struck us full in the face, and we 
pulled our thin jackets more tightly about us and shivered. At the 
ranch, I found a small site (No. 50 on map), probably a temporary 
camp, judging by the absence of houses, and made a collection. 
Thence, we rode through sheltered ravines and over wind-swept 
ridges, alternately freezing and thawing, until we came to Jesus 
Maria, an abandoned mining camp. As we rode, signs of copper 
became more and more pronounced, reaching their maximum degree 
of intensity at Jests Maria, where the low hills show a variety of 
colors. Morquecho says that once this was a rich mine. Now the 
expensive heavy machinery lies rusting in the open; the one-time 
homes of the miners are slowly being reduced to mounds of stones. 
It is an old story in Sonora—of fortunes made, and fortunes lost. 

A pefasco, upthrust by internal workings of the earth, forms a 
great wall, towering high above the desolated mine, running for 
miles to the east and to the west. Through it, a jagged gap gives 
access to the valley beyond. Ina cave in the mouth of the gap near 
the old mine, we camped. The wind blew colder than ever. We 
placed the panniers end to end to form a wind-break and built a 
great fire on the leeward side. 


42 SoUTHWEST MusEUM PAPERS 


Tomorrow we shall be at Nacozari, the end of our trip. The 
thought cheers George and me, but it has the opposite effect on 
Morquecho. He faces the prospect of three more chilly days taking 
the stock back to Colonia Oaxaca—then a long cold winter, living 
with charitable ranchers, or, perhaps, hunting in the mountains, 
alone. For three years, he says, he has had no work, other than a 
few odd jobs, being too old and weak to work steadily. I pity him. 


December 6. 


There was ice in the water-bucket when we got up this morn- 
ing. A hardy northerner would probably have laughed at us as we 
huddled around the fire eating our breakfast—but we are not hardy 
northerners. Riding over the hills to Nacozari we alternately froze 
and thawed, as we did yesterday. The sun shone pleasantly, but 
its warmth was not enough to counteract the chill of the biting wind. 


Before we began the ascent of the sierra beyond which Nacozari 
lay, we passed trains of burros going out for firewood. A young 
vaquero, with decidedly more Indian than Spanish blood in his veins, 
joined us and rode up the mountainside with us to his little ranch. 
He talked about the mining prospects he has and showed me places 
where there are veins of ore. Along the trail, George picked up 
brightly-colored samples until his pockets bulged. On the other 
side, the sierra seemed to be made of solid ore, mostly of a reddish 
tinge. We descended a winding road to the town. Across the valley 
a laboring engine pulled an ore-train from a mine to the great smelter, 
built on the steep slope of a hill. 


A white-bearded feeble old Mexican met us and consented to 
our stopping at his house on the edge of town. There we un- 
packed. Morquecho stayed at the house to guard the stock; George 
and I went to a hotel. Later, I made arrangements for our trans- 
portation to Agua Prieta tomorrow. 


In the evening, I walked up to the old man’s house to pack the 
outfit more compactly in preparation for an early start in the morn- 
ing. Inside the jacalito, the family sat around a gasoline tin filled 
with burning charcoal (their stove) listening to Morquecho’s marvel- 
ous tales. Upon my entrance, the old man invited me with humble 
courtesy to join them and offered me his chair; but I had no time 
to spare. We went into the storeroom where our things were piled, 
and I sorted and packed the equipment while a boy held a lantern 
for me and the others watched from the doorway with many ex- 
clamations of wonderment as I produced things strange to them. 
To Morquecho, I gave the scanty remainder of our provisions. The 
task was soon finished and I returned to the hotel. 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 43 


December 7. 


| George and I went to the house early this morning to bring 
our cargo to the garage, where, eventually (after the customary 
hour’s delay), we loaded it into a touring car and climbed in with 
the driver. We bade Morquecho good-by reluctantly, sorry to part 
with the lovable old charlatan, and drove away. 


Pls be 
THE RUINS 


I think it advisable to warn the reader that if, in the following 
pages, I state that “the ruins of such-and-such a district are so- 
and-so,” I am basing my conclusions upon the ruins I actually saw, 
which may or may not be wholly representative of the district. It 
is possible that there are to be found in the parts of Sonora (i. e. the 
points of concentrated occupation, principally river-valleys) I tra- 
versed, cultures of which I saw no sign. different from any cultures 
I found. However, this seems improbable, since the twenty-four 
sites I examined are so located as to represent a fairly good arche- 
ological cross-section of the extreme eastern valleys of the northern 
half of the state and of a part of the valley of the Rio de Sonora, at 
the present time the most thickly settled valley in Sonora. Between 
these two drainages, run the Rio de Bavispe and the Rio de Mocte- 
zuma, the former being sparsely inhabited today and the latter little 
better. Since the distance in a straight line from, say, Arizpe east 
to Baceraca is only eighty miles and the intervening country is not 
well adapted to farming, being rather mountainous, the occurrence 
of any unknown major culture in northeastern Sonora is outside the 
bounds of probability. To the east, in Chihuahua, of course, there 
are the Casas Grandes and Babicora cultures, separated from Sonora 
by the great Sierra Madre, over which their influence seeped west- 
ward.’ What there may be west of the Rio de Sonora and south 
of the Rio de Aros, remains to be discovered. In both directions 
there is abundant good country for the occurrence of sites—but 
those regions lie outside the country under discussion. 

Assuming, then, that the twenty-four sites are representative, 
they can be divided into two cultural classifications under which all 
sites in this part of Sonora can be placed. One is a peripheral de- 
velopment of the Casas Grandes culture, confined to the easternmost 
drainage (the upper Bavispe, the Huachinera and the Bacadéhuachi 
rivers) running as far north as the boundary of the United States, 
as far south as the mouth of the Bacadéhuachi and probably up the 


1. Bandelier was informed of traditions indicating that the ruined pueblos 
of Batesopa and Baquigopa, formerly inhabited by the Opatas, ‘‘were frequently 
disturbed by the inhabitants of Casas Grandes, on the other side of the Sierra 
Madre. From Batesopa, Casas Grandes may be reached in less than five days 
of wearisome foot-travel, across a very rough mountain wilderness. It was also 
ie that the Opatas of Batesopa in revenge made incursions upon Casas 

randes.’’ 
Bandelier, page 520. 


Batesopa and Baquigopa lie east of Huachinera, in the valley of the river 
of that name, in extreme eastern Sonora. 


44 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 45 


Rio de Granados (or the lower Bavispe), this being its western 
boundary. The other reaches the Rio de Moctezuma (possibly the 
Granados) on the east; ruins westward at least as far as the Rio 
de Sonora, probably no farther north than Cananea, where a moun- 
tain range would check it; and to the south an unknown distance. 
This latter culture has so little in common with the former that 
they were probably not contemporaneous, and are to be regarded as 
being independent of each other, although these are open questions. 
The former, I shall refer to hereafter as Peripheral Casas Grandes 
and the latter as Rio de Sonora.’ 

Site 27 may be taken as typical of the Peripheral Casas Grandes 
culture and a description of it will serve as a description of the 
culture as a whole, since it is perfectly homogeneous, running true 
to form from this site south to the mouth of the Bacadéhuachi, 
(possibly, farther) both architecturally and ceramically. In architec- 
ture, it is extremely simple. Surface indications show only outcrop- 
ping stones set in straight lines to form rectangular rooms averaging 
ten feet square. The ground-plan here is indeterminate, but judging 
by Site 14, east of Douglas, Arizona, on the Slaughter Ranch, which 
is architecturally the same, the rooms were joined to enclose a court 
(or more than one court) on three sides. Site 37, the southernmost 
of the Peripheral Casas Grandes sites I found, is so constructed, 
excepting that it has a wall enclosing the fourth side. The resem- 
blance of the outcropping stones to the characteristic indications 
of slab-houses, led me to call them “slabs,” but this is misleading. 
Their function was, in all probability, the same as that of true slabs, 
i. e. to provide a foundation for the house to permit of a weather- 
tight joint being made between the walls of brush or poles and the 
ground. That the house itself was built of wood (not of stones or 
adobe), cannot be gainsaid, since not the slightest trace remains of 
fallen débris. The rooms cover an area of about a hundred by two 
hundred yards, which is large, the average for this type being not 
more than half that. 

Ceramically, this Peripheral culture is closely allied to Casas 
Grandes. In the collections of sherds from Site 27, plain wares 
predominate, constituting at least ninety per cent of the whole. Most 
of the plain is unslipped, reddish brown in color, some having a 
lighter, more yellowish tinge. Paste is coarse and the core appears 
dark in cross-section. Some of the pieces are of uniformly colored, 
slightly finer red-brown paste. There is too a ware having a maroon 
wash-slip. The average thickness of the plain wares is one-quarter 
inch. The sherds are almost all from ollas, but there are a few bowl- 

2. Bandelier, who traversed this region in 1884, remarked the difference 
in pottery types in the vicinity of Huachinera from those which prevailed farther 
back on his route; i. e., in the Sonora River valley. Thus observers following 


nearly the same route, although in opposite directions and at an interval of 
more than forty years, bear the same testimony. See page 517. 


46 SoUTHWEST MusEUM PAPERS 


sherds which, being crudely made, probably do not represent a typical 
plain-ware shape. Incised neck decorations are common, the incisions 
being deeply cut. One such sherd has broad bands, like the Pueblo 
ollas, with a design incised in the bands. Raked exteriors (indiscrim- 
inately scratched ) are also to be found. Quasi-obliterated corrugated 
olla-sherds with dull smoke-blackened interior, which are identical 
with the Chihuahua sherds of that type, complete the list of unpainted 
wares. (This latter type was made by coiling and corrugating in the 
usual way, the corrugations being rubbed down almost to extinction 
before the paste dried, leaving an evenly pitted surface. ) 


Many of the sherds having painted decoration are of typical 
Casas Grandes polychrome and black-on-yellow wares. The local 
types show further development which savors of degeneration. The 
typical Peripheral Casas Grandes decorated pottery is black or black- 
and-red on a bright orange base. One sherd in the collection has 
black, red, and white on an orange-brown base. While the pigment 
of the red decorative lines is always thin and smooth, the black 
pigment on the Peripheral polychrome is as invariably raised by firing 
and usually has a burnt, roughened texture bordering very closelv 
upon a glaze. Ina few cases, the black has burned_a light yellowish 
green, which, however, misses being a green glaze. Broad-line dec- 
orations occur, but the average line is an eighth or three-sixteenths 
of an inch in width, which is coarser than the linework on typical 
Casas Grandes and too fine to be termed broad-line. 


Another ware which may represent a type is black-on-white. 
This, however, has more of the true Casas Grandes preciseness of 
linework than of the Peripheral decorative technique, and may not 
be of local manufacture. The black pigment is not raised nor 
roughened. Pastes are of medium fineness, and cores are sometimes 
dark, generally uniformly light brown. Jar-shapes, of which the 
rims are thickened and sharply curved outward, are more abundant 
than bowls, although the latter are not uncommon. Orange-base 
bowls commonly have both interior and exterior decoration, though 
not without exception. Bowl-rims are direct and rounded, some 
having black rim-painting. Where black-on-white occurs on bowl- 
sherds, the exterior lacks any white slip and has the brown color of 
the clay with an exterior decoration in black or red. This, by the 
way, should not be confused with any of the northern black-on- 
white, nor is it probable that it has any connection with any culture 
of the more northern Southwest. 

Turning to the Rio de Sonora, we have a culture which displays 
greater architectural variation. ‘‘Slab’-houses of the Peripheral 
Casas Grandes type occur, but are too much in the minority to be 
considered a very important type of construction, since they are 
almost always found in conjunction with that which may be taken 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 47 


CS | i oe ca 


Site 46, showing double line foundation 


as typical of the Rio de Sonora culture. Surface indications of 
this show a double line of stones laid together to form a founda- 
tion a foot, or slightly more, in width. Since they are level with 
the surface of the surrounding ground, the houses that were erected 
over them must have been made of brush or poles. Rooms are 
always rectangular, eight by ten or ten by twelve feet in size, and, 
so far as I could tell, were not placed in any very definite order. 
Mounds of adobe at three of the Sonora-type ruins I investigated 
ban indicate that the use of that material for house-building was prac- 
e ticed. At Site 40, I exposed a bit of an adobe wall and found it 
x” to be made, apparently, of crudely made bricks laid in uneven 
ar courses. Excavation will be necessary to ascertain exactly the 
method of construction. 

The pottery of the Rio de Sonora can be briefly described. 
For one thing, it is entirely devoid of painted decoration, and of 
any adornment excepting a few incised neck designs and raking of 
some exteriors. It resembles the plain wares of the Peripheral Casas 
Grandes, but is somewhat coarser in texture, thicker in cross-section 
and redder in color. There is one type with a rubbed light red slip 
and another with maroon wash-slip. The balance is simply coarse 
plain ware, which I cannot describe adequately. Cores commonly 
are dark; colors range from yellowish brown to black, the latter 
being due to overfiring. The thickness of the bulk of the pottery 
indicates large pieces—ollas or jars. Ruins are direct, out-curving. 

As might be expected, I found sites which did not belong wholly 
to either one or the other of these two cultures. Site 38, on the 


48 SOUTHWEST MuSEUM PAPERS 


Rio de Granados below the mouth of the Bacadéhuachi is a notable 
example. It is located on the narrow top of a cordén which extends 
from the hills on the east into the cafion. Conjoining rooms of 
“slabs” built in a cluster provided living-quarters for the inhabi- 
tants. In addition there are rectangular enclosures of loose-laid 
dry masonry, which, judging by the fewness of the jumbled stones 
which mark their positions, might have been for defense, like the 
forts used until recently by ranchers. Other walls west of the 
houses provided a larger defense-compound which closed the village 
against attack from the hills. These piled-up walls clearly illustrate 
the adaptation of local material to local needs, thus freeing them 
from the necessity of being considered an architectural type worthy 
of more than passing notice. While geographically the site is barely 
beyond the southern limit of the Peripheral Casas Grandes culture, 
ceramically it is far removed, the numerous sherds being, with the 
exception of a single brown-on-yellow piece of indeterminate origin, 
much more closely related to the Rio de Sonora types, if. not identical 
with them. Incidentally, it is interesting to note the absence of 
quasi-obliterated at many of the ruins of the eastern drainage, espe- 
cially the more southern ones, which points toward a diminution of 
Chihuahua influence. 


Now, a few words concerning chronology, into which the 
ubiquitous Little Colorado red ware enters as an important factor. 
By its appearance at Pueblo Bonito during Pueblo 3, and its presence 
at other sites of the same period, its contemporaneity with that era 
of Southwestern occupation is assured. (Please note that in speak- 
ing of “Little Colorado red” I refer to the real red bowls with 
curvilinear hatched decoration, not to the later orange-reds nor to 
the glazes). This same ware, Dr. Kidder found at the Casas Grandes 
ruins in Chihuahua associated with Babicora polychrome, underly- 
ing the later Casas Grandes wares. This would place the Babicora 
culture in Pueblo 3 and the Casas Grandes culture (probably) in 
Pueblo 4—certainly not earlier than the latter part of Pueblo 3. 
Substantitation of this is offered by the pottery of Site 14, east of 
Douglas, Arizona, (see map) where Little Colorado red occurs with 
Babicora polychrome, Casas Grandes decorated being completely 
absent, making it more certain that Casas Grandes types postdated 
the Little Colorado red and that the stratification at Casas Grandes 
was not accidental. Here, also, at Site 14, there were one or two 
sherds (an insignificant percentage) of Peripheral Casas Grandes 
orange base, which provide a tenuous link between that site and the 
Peripheral culture. Since there were no sherds of Babicora poly- 
chrome or Little Colorado red at any of the Peripheral sites I in- 
vestigated, while there were examples of Casas Grandes wares, there 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA 49 


remains little doubt that the Peripheral culture can be assigned to 
the latter part of Pueblo 3 (at the very earliest) or to Pueblo 4. 

Assuming that this chronology is correct, and that the con- 
spicuous absence of Peripheral Casas Grandes or Chihuahua types 
at the Rio de Sonora sites is indicative of their occupation at a still 
later date, the Rio de Sonora culture brings us well into the Pueblo 
4 period—to the end of that period, in fact, and into Pueblo 5, since 
the valley of the Sonora River was inhabited in 1540 when Coronado 
passed through it. (Bandelier, p. 490.) 

In view of the paucity of internal development manifested by 
the remains of these Sonoran cultures, it is safe to say that their 
period of existence was brief. The absence of rubbish mounds at 
any of the sites supports this statement. Apparently, this part of 
Sonora was an unpeopled wilderness until the upper Southwestern 
cultures reached their zenith and began to decay. Then a thin wave 
of population crossed the Sierra Madre from the east and settled 
in the valleys among its foothills, to remain a short while and disap- 
pear. Later, the Opatas, according to tradition, moved into the 
valley of the Rio de Sonora and built the villages we have seen, and 
lived in them until the Spanish colonization. Short though the en- 
tire period of occupation was, it provides another opportunity for 
linking the prehistoric Southwest with the historic times and may 
eventually shed light upon the important cultures of Chihuahua. 


SouTHWEST MusEuM PAPERS 


GLOSSARY OF SPANISH WORDS AND Pies 


acequia—irrigating ditch. 

arroyO—a small stream or stream-bed. 

Buenos dias—good morning! 

cajOn—narrow cajfion or valley. 

cajoncito—diminutive of cajon. 

camino real—highway; in the mountains, a well-traveled trail. 
caracol—snail-shell ; winding like a snail-shell. 

centavo—a piece of money worth one-half cent. 

chilis—red peppers. 

cordon—a long spur, hill or ridge. 


corral—fenced enclosure for keeping stock. 
frijoles—Mexican beans. 


gracias a Dios—Thank God! 
gringo—American. 
kiosko—kiosk. 


legua—the distance a person horseback travels in one hour, 
theoretically, three miles. 


llano—plain, open grass-country. 

machete—a long knife, formerly a cutlass. 

macho—he-mule. 

mesa—flat-topped hill or terraced country; plateau. 

mescal—an extremely potent colorless drink made of maguey 

(Spanish bayonet. ) E 

mesita—a diminutive of mesa. 

metate—stone for grinding corn. 

milpa—field. 

Muchisisimas gracias—a rather florid way of saying thank you— 
literally “very, very, very much thanks.” 

mulada—mule-train; pack-outfit. 


ocatilla—a plant having a number of strong, spidery, thorn-clad. 
sticks instead of trunk and branches. 


olla—jar, pot; earthenware vessel, usually globular. 


AMSDEN: RECONNAISSANCE IN SONORA eal 


panocha—brown sugar moulded in cakes—delicious. 
patio—open space about which a Mexican house is built. 
pefiasco—cliff ; high rock. 

peon—laborer ; peasant. 


peso—a piece of money worth from 35 to 50 cents, depending 
on the silver market. 


pitalla—a sort of “giant cactus.” 


plaza—open space about which a Mexican town is built; square; 
public loafing-place. 


rio—river. 

ranchero—rancher. 
ranchito—diminutive of rancho. 
rancho—ranch. 

rincon—cove; literally “inside corner.” 
pueblito—diminutive of pueblo. 
pueblo—town. 

saguaro—giant cactus. 

santo—saint. 

sierra—mountain or mountain range. 
tierra caliente—hot country. 

tortilla—a rubbery sort of pancake made of coarse cornmeal. 
vaquero—cow-puncher. 

iY usted?—And you? 


zaguan—the Mexican equivalent of a hall; entrance. 


Gao 
omens 
ea 


os alle 


ia 


T er 


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